224 THE DOVER ROAD 



last stand. Tradition is not lightly to be put aside 

 at any time, but when it is supported by Csesar's 

 own words it deserves all respect. " Being repulsed," 

 he writes, " they withdrew themselves into the 

 woods, and reached a place which they had prepared 

 before, having closed all approaches to it by felled 

 timber." The soldiers of the Seventh Legion, however, 

 soon captured this stronghold. Throwing up a mound 

 against it, they advanced, holding their shields over 

 their heads in the formation known as " the tortoise," 

 and drove out the defenders at the sword's point. 

 This was the last place to hold out that day. Every- 

 where the Britons were dislodged, and numbers of 

 them slain. The survivors withdrew further into the 

 woodlands that surrounded Caer Caint, and Caesar, 

 suspecting ambuscades in those unknown forests, 

 forbade pursuit. 



It was evening before the last fighting was done. 

 The battle had raged on a front extending for three 

 miles, from Bekesbourne to Kingston, and it now 

 remained to camp for the night, and to fortify against 

 a possible surprise the ridge which Caesar held. And 

 so, before the exhausted soldiery could lie down to 

 rest after the incessant labours of two days and 

 nights, they threw up the lines of entrenchments 

 that still, after a lapse of more than nineteen hundred 

 years, remain distinct upon Barham Downs. 



The next day the Romans buried their dead, and 

 Caesar had just despatched three columns in a forward 

 movement towards Caer Caint, when hasty news 

 arrived from Deal that a storm had shattered his fleet. 

 The rear-guard of the hindmost column was just 

 disappearing from his gaze as he stood on Patrixbourne 

 Hill, and hurriedly sending messengers to bring the 

 expedition back, he at once prepared to return to the 

 coast, taking with him artificers for the repair of his 

 vessels, and an escort suilicient to secure his own safety. 

 Caesar had no certain means of knowing how long a time 

 his absence would extend, but, bidding his legions to 



