Act 2 Chapter 1

First part of Act 2. Act 2 will be about Dakar, and only briefly jump to the present times.

Act 2

Blood Under the Sun

Chapter 1

They arrived in the city sometime in the afternoon. Not a single cloud was in the sky, allowing the sun to shine its merciless heat upon the tattered earth. They called it a city, yet that was false in all but nostalgia. The city had been subjected to constant bombard for weeks from all sizes of artillery shells. The resulting impacts on sandstone structures was chaos. Nothing stood against the hellish rain, not with the severity of it. It could safely be said that not a single building stood, excluding the remnants of Fort Scipio.

Dakar had been a quaint town, before it received massive militarization in 1867. The city had been home to indigenous Africans for centuries, under Roman control. For a long while, the tribal citizens had been content to live in huts situated far away from the solid Roman homes. Made from branches and sorts of mud bricks, they provided some comfort. It was mainly fear of the Romans, their strange skin, tongue, and technology that prevented total integration. The fact that most of the Romans never managed to learn the numerous local languages did not help matters.

When a war broke out between the Romans and Carthaginians, the town did not consider any threats. They were hundreds of miles from the front lines and continued on with their simple fishing lives. The tribal citizens would go out to hunt and fish, while the Romans grew what crops they had that survived in the dry heat. Special agricultural canals were dug many times, in order to keep plants watered. The tribals and Romans gained a reason to unite one day when Carthaginians had infiltrated Roman territory. Their task had been to dig deep into Roman territory and strike at small villages. Dakar was on that list.

Romans and natives fought side by side against a Carthage force of twenty. Both natives and Romans were trained fighters, so the Carthaginians fell fast. It was then that they realized that coexistence could happened. The city grew, thanks to the absence of tensions. Romans married natives, and each side learned the language of others. When the Empire began fortifying its coastal regions to combat the rising power of the Carthage Navy in the 1860s, Dakar received its upgrade.

The city was to be structured around the new fortress, Fort Scipio. The fort was named in honor of the General Scipio who had dealt several devastating blows to the Carthaginians in the past. The fort was a marvel at the time. It was designed as a star fort type, meaning that it contained six points, that near the tips opened up into small pentagons. This allowed for total surveillance of the surrounding area, as well as allowing for large towers to be built in the hexagons. This towers were outfitted with cannons and were designed with future weaponry in mind. This meant reinforced floors to accommodate heavier guns, and slots for smaller weapons. The recent rise in heavy howitzers and machine guns fit well with the fort.

Saying the walls are thick is an understatement. Each wall of the star was built in sections. The outer section was built with reinforced concrete; concrete with metal bars running through them to help keep them together. The concrete was ten feet thick and one hundred feet high. The second section was another ten foot wide area, although instead of concrete it was filled with sand. The sand served to cushion the impact of rounds that penetrated the outer section. The third section was a repeat of the first. Behind those sections was the hallway inside the wall where troops could move about and man stations about halfway up the wall. The stations were slots for rifles, machine guns, and cannons. After the hallway was a repeat of the outer three sections. So overall, the walls achieved a total thickness of seventy feet. The outer sections were also slanted inward, bottom to top. This allowed for easier deflection of cannonballs, and later artillery rounds.

Inside the fort were the standard barracks, mess halls, training grounds, and commands center. Each building was built of reinforced concrete with a three foot thickness. Each building also had at least one underground room, in the event of the upper floor collapsing. Trench lines, 12 feet deep and six feet wide, ran around the inner perimeter about fifty yards from the walls. This was in the event of the enemy breaking through the wall, so the defenders could fire upon the breaks from safety. The total inside area of the fort numbered at around two square miles.

Outside the walls was a three mile long stretch of flattened land. Dotting the land was a series of five trenches, each spaced around two hundred yards from each other. Each trench system was equipped with fortified siding, sandbags, observation posts fifty yards ahead, bunkers, and communication trenches. The trenches were designed with breaks, so that individual sections could be block off and cleared out in the event of enemy forces storming in. Several areas, in between trenches, were dug in a few feet for artillery weapons. Barbed wire filled in the remaining spaces.

The fort, with its massive size and area, required tens of thousands of personnel to man it. This caused Dakar to spring from a little fishing town to a massive metropolis in a matter of months. Construction of the fort took around twelve years, and the builders were mainly the soldiers who would be stationed in the fortress. Fort Scipio also became the dominate military center in all of Northwest Africa. This also resulted in the economy springing up due to the larger number of workers to fish, farm, craft, and trade. So it was a shame that the trio came upon a shell of all that.

Their trek through the wreckage gave them only a hint at what had occurred over months of vicious slaughter and fighting. No longer did any homes stand. No more did children run about the streets, or horse pull their chariots. No gentlemen with their hats and suits chatted away the talk of the day, whole the women in fantastic dresses gossip about each other. The city was obliterated into nothingness. What used to occupy miles of land was now a level plain. Houses and businesses used to make up the skyline; one could now see straight for miles and miles.

The group encountered no more resistance during their entrance. They were forced to walk for hours across open territory. The only source of cover would have been the numerous shell holes that ate into the earth. No bodies, intact at least, could be found. The shells had blown away everything. The Carthaginians seemed to have moved away from this area of the city. The group assumed that they were focusing on mustering forces to the east in order to avoid being divided by the relief force. The Romans would carve any small groups to ribbons, so the Carthaginians had to tread carefully. Shelling would still be occurring at the Fort, but lightly to avoid hitting their own men.

As the day grew hot, the three companions grew tired. They felt hot, sweaty, filthy, and down right exhausted. Valencia had lost the strength to carry her pack a couple hours ago, so Caligula trudged on with two. Cassius had, early on, volunteered to screen their advance by going ahead but Caligula had pointed out the futility of that. He had said “Look here Optio, we can all see for miles. That haze in the distance? The Bastion. No need to run off now.”

Continuing in silence, the sight of Fort Scipio's remnants was a bittersweet one. The Fort still stood, daring the Carthaginians to breach it. The walls still stood, with the halls only exposed in a few places. The towers were all gone though, the group could tell. Even from this side, they could tell that they were some of the first structures to fall. The defensive lines seemed abandoned as well. The trenches had vanished, long under the plow of artillery and boots. Bodies still littered this area, however. So when the three walked through the churned dirt, they had to be careful.

Walking inwards they could see a story. The first siege line seemed to hold the least. The lowest amount of Carthaginians lie there, while the Romans had their highest casualty rates there. Bodies, intact and torn, of all kinds were everywhere. Broken guns, shattered swords, and butchered horses and camels adorned the fields. A cheerful thought, if one could be found, was that no Eagle was in the dust.

The second defensive line seemed to have fared a bit better. A lot more Carthage men lie broken before the remainders of the trenches. They seemed tangled in barbed-wire and upon spikes. It looked as if the defenders had anticipated charges more, and held off better. This might have worked against wave after wave of men if not for the elephants. It could be seen that the war elephants had broken this line. Large footprints, still imprinted, dotted the ground in front of, inside of, and behind the trench line.

The third line looked only recently abandoned. This was evident by the larger mess. Blood was the first sight to be seen. Bright red blood soaked the bodies piled highest. Carthage soldiers lay drowning in the fresh sea of it. Their soft cloaks and tunics, turbans and scimitars, all matched in their new uniform of crimson. Here they suffered the worst. Thousands of their men dotted the fields for every ten Roman legionnaires. The defense might have seemed to be a last ditch one, had the footprints leading towards a hole in the wall not been recent.

Calling out, Caligula exclaimed, “Ho! Look, an entrance. Just...sitting there. No guard, barricade, or anything. Something's wrong. Onward, I supposed.”

“Aye, sir. Must have something to do with the lack of resistance we've seen. Sieges normally see the besieged surrounded, not exposed completely on most sides.” Cassius offered his input as they crept closer.

Finding a gap in the wall of dead, the group approached within yards of the gap. Broken ammunition boxes and crates stuck up through the dirt. Tools lie forgotten, and helmets joined them. When they got within fifty yards of the wall, a loud crack rang out. The dirt kicked up near Caligula's feet, not two inches from his left big toe.

“Cease! Hands up, eyes forwards, and mouths shut! You're not barbarians, otherwise you're be screaming and waving a frilly sword. But you don't seem like a very good relief force.”

The voice echoed from high up the wall. The three froze in their steps and thought wise to follow the advice. Raising their hands up, they silently searched the wall for the speaker. Another shot, this time near Cassius's dusty boots, made them cease.

“I said keep your damn eyes forward! Next time, the shot will rip out someone's throat.”

So the three did their best to stare forward. No matter what swirl of dust of fluttering of debris occurred, they did not let their sight be drawn away. They stood for what seemed, to them at least, to be an hour or two. After they stood sweating, thinking it was impossible to stand still any longer, a man appeared.

Walking out from the large gap in the wall, a Roman legionnaire approached the group. He was, surprisingly, in full uniform despite the scorching heat and dryness of Dakar. He wore the uniform of an infantryman. A dark brown trench coat covered his body, protecting him from debris and keeping the sun off of his body. His chest still bore the steel chest plate of the Legion, tempered and folded several times in order to turn a blade, and sometimes a bullet. Underneath he wore a dark khaki tunic, stained darker still by sweat and blood. His combat pants were slightly baggy and a lighter brown than the trench coat, but dark than the tunic. The bottoms were wrapped up in strips of, originally, white cloth. They were wrapped so that the bottoms were wrapped to his combat boots in order to keep out dirt, mud, water, and various other debris.

On his head sat the standard steel helmet of the Roman soldier. It had changed only slightly from the older designs, dating far back into the Legion. Cheek guards sat near the front, with a long and slanted neck guard taking up the rear half of the helmet. The top was a round hemisphere of thick steel, with a thicker band rounding the bottom where the guards connected.

The man carried a rifle in front of him as well. From about three yards away, Caligula could tell that the barrel was pointed right at his heart. Very unlikely, he thought, that the man would miss. What a shame; this was a nice uniform.

“Hrmmph. Whatchu blokes doing all the way out here? War's on the eastern side now! Bwahaha!”

The soldier's laughter soon broke into ragged coughing. Placing a hand over his mouth, he bent over and coughed more. He gestured with the hand holding the rifle to give him a moment. Caligula glanced over at Cassius and gave him a skeptical look. His response was a stone face. Trying Valencia, Caligula at least got some recognition. Sadly, the girl was trembling with tension and nervousness.

Finishing his fit, the soldier stood back up. He shook himself a bit and straightened up. He swung the rifle around and rested it on his shoulder.

“Jest fooling wit you lot. Some bloke in a fancy suit came through here earlier wit some brass. Says to look fers ya. So I did. And heres ya are. Come on, into our humble abode! The Centurion awaits! Etcetera, etcetera.”

So it was with that greeting that the trio made their way into the ruins of Fort Scipio. Like a gaping maw, the Bastion of the Damned welcomed them in. The crushed concrete made a welcome sign, and the bodies a mat. They walked through the ruined wall and saw the scorch marks from explosions, pocks and marks from bullets bouncing off, and gravel from where the defense finally gave. The hallway was no different, as the formerly regal caret lie in tatters and covered in debris. Across the width stood another gap with roughly the same dimensions.

“How did that happen? Two holes right across with the same sizes?”

Caligula asked the soldier, who was turned out to be a simple Legionary named Cicerus. The soldier lead them about halfway into the hall and then stopped. He stretched his arms, let out a yawn, and then faced the group.

“Well, way I hears it, 'twas a couple 'o elephants! Some bloke over on the barbarians' side decided to up and dump a lotta explosives on the critters. Sent them rushing and 'Boom!', there goes the wall and whichever poor saps thought to stand there. Might have made it inside had the Centurion not seen it coming a mile away. Literally. He was up top the wall and called a group to standby. As soon as the first one blew a hole, the second ran on in. Blammo! Got ourselves another little hole. The group waiting around quickly dove in and started blasted the Hells outta any barbarians stupid enough to rush in. Damned fools, thinking their glorious deaths mean something. Hell, if ya gotta die, at least do it smartly. Anyway, the Boss'll clear things up wit you guys. I've got a post to man.”

Cicerus waved the three companions towards the inner hole. He turned around and jogged towards a ladder down a ways, no doubt heading back to his sniping roost. He left them with some mutterings about how his job was “boring as hell” and how he “wished I had a damned cup of coffee.” Caligula took the lead towards the fort with Valencia tailing close behind and Cassius covering the rear with an air of alert and skepticism. They entered the threshold into the fort and they saw the Centurion, and what was left of his people.

Author's Note

This felt like it dragged on a lot to me. I get the feeling that I didn't have enough action and it was me just saying how hot it was. I promise the next chapter will be better.