Siege

by Geraint Jones

  ‘Felix,’ a voice called from the barrack room’s doorway. It belonged to a young soldier. Dressed in helmet and mail, he was acting as the company runner. ‘Centurion H wants all section commanders to his quarters for briefing.’

  I looked down at the pair of sandals I had unstrapped from my feet. Sleep would have to wait.

  Stumps snorted. ‘Privileges of rank. Ask him if I can go back to Titus.’

  ‘Missing life in the stores?’ Brando asked.

  ‘Those blankets won’t stack themselves,’ Stumps answered as I left the room and made my way to the centurion’s accommodation.

  ‘Get comfortable, lads,’ our centurion offered to the small assembly of section commanders. His tone was reserved; H was usually a genial soul, and I wondered at the cause of his change in humour. Whatever the reason, I doubted that it would be good.

  ‘Right, lads. General situation is still the same. Only sighting we’ve had of the enemy is a few mounted scouts, and we expect they’re keeping eyes on us constantly from Bald Crest Hill on the northern flank. Visible fires at night seem to confirm they’re in that area, but not in any force that we need to worry about.’

  ‘Any news from our own scouts?’ a section commander asked, referring to the two men who had left the camp with Malchus a week before, and who had been sent onwards to the Rhine in an attempt to rouse the legions there into effecting our rescue.

  ‘You’ll know if there is,’ H shrugged. ‘It’ll be like a triumphal march by the time everyone comes out to hear what they’ve got to say. But no, I’m afraid. The situation’s the same, boys. Germans out there. Us in here.

  ‘Now look,’ he went on, his brow creasing. ‘It should be that, with us in here, and them out there, nobody in this fort is dying. Well, that doesn’t seem to be the case. One of the First Century lads got stabbed by a mate of his last night, and bled to death in the barrack room. He died because he was complaining about someone’s fucking snoring – don’t laugh, you fuckers – and we cannot afford to be losing blokes for that kind of bollocks.’

  ‘Noted, boss.’ One of the veterans smiled. ‘Beatings only for snoring.’

  ‘I’m fucking serious,’ H warned, trying to suppress his own dark grin. ‘I don’t want to lose men to the Germans. I sure as fuck do not want to be losing men over shit like that.’

  ‘First Century lads have always been nuts,’ the veteran offered, and H shrugged in agreement.

  ‘Even so. Keep a close eye on your boys. Keep the discipline. I’m not one for bullshit, you know that, but I’m going to start doing snap inspections of the block and the lads’ kit. Extra duties for anyone who’s not up to standard. Section commanders included,’ he added with a smile.

  After a few dramatic groans from the veterans, the men were dismissed. I hung back.

  ‘He can go back to the QM’s once you get Balbus back from the hospital,’ H told me in answer to my question on Stumps’s transfer. ‘Could be a few days though. His finger looked bloody horrible when I went to see him.’

  It did not surprise me that H would visit one of his men in the fort’s hospital, even for an innocuous injury. His leadership pushed me to chastise myself for not calling in on Balbus myself that day.

  ‘Got it from a splinter,’ I told him as I turned for the door.

  ‘Hang on a minute, Felix.’ The centurion’s tone was friendly, but it was still an order. ‘I’ve got my own question about the QM.’

  I held my tongue.

  ‘It’s all through the cohort that you can have a good night in one of the stores down there – wine and tits – but no matter who I ask, everyone’s pretending like it doesn’t exist.’ He paused then, trying to read me. I knew that my face would be nothing but a scar-crossed mask.

  ‘I’m not stupid, Felix, I know why they don’t want an officer turning up, but officers need wine and tits too. Seeing as you arranged your friend’s transfer so easily, I’m wondering, if you and the QM are such old pals, whether maybe you could vouch for me? Leave rank at the door, and all that good stuff.’

  ‘If I can,’ I began, keeping up my guard, ‘then I’ll be glad to.’

  ‘Good man.’ H grinned, his spirits seemingly restored. ‘If we can die together we can drink together is the way I see it. Not that I plan on the first eventuality. Tomorrow night then, if you don’t mind? We’ve got the walls tonight. Try not to let any of the boys fall asleep or kill themselves out of boredom. It’s going to be another dull watch.’

  He was wrong.

  36

  No one knew when the girl had died, only that her young life had come to an end in a bloodstained alleyway, her corpse then dragged and stuffed into a latrine. Gruff soldiers laughed and joked that the civilian who found the body had shit herself.

  I was not one of the men laughing.

  Our section was on the walls when the news of the latest killing spread around the fort, the army’s chain of whispers leading from the patrolling soldiers who attended to the girl’s body, to the guard commander of the watch, and finally to the eager ears of the men on the battlements.

  I might not have been laughing, but I was the most enthusiastic amongst the guard to hear every detail of the body, no matter how grim, and my hurried questions drew peculiar looks from my comrades, who must have wondered why I wanted to know such things. Doubtless they thought me deranged, but I was not seeking the sickening facts from morbid curiosity, but from fear. Try as I might, from the moment I had heard the first whisper of death, I had not been able to shake the idea that the butchered girl was Linza. No matter how hard I tried to push the images away, the picture of her cut-up body floated in front of my eyes.

  ‘You sure she had brown hair?’ I pressed the soldiers who were relieving us of our duty.

  One of the veterans shrugged. ‘That’s what everyone’s saying.’

  ‘Who’s they?’ I pushed him.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, I don’t know. Everyone. I won’t bother saying anything next time, if you’re just gonna grill me over it.’

  I brushed past the man towards the battlement’s stairs. I moved with speed because I knew that the soldier was wrong. He was wrong, and the girl’s hair would be blond. She would be German.

  She would be Linza.

  ‘Felix,’ Folcher called after me as I reached the bottom step and broke into a run. ‘Where are you going?’

  I ignored him. I ran past our barrack block, not wanting to waste a single second by stripping off my kit. Instead I carried my shield and javelin as my sandals slapped against the dirt. My haste and my armour drew looks of flushed panic from the civilians and curious frowns from soldiers, but I ignored them all as I concentrated on finding Linza. By the time that I had sprinted to her block on the west side of the fort, sweat was running into my eyes and my chest was heaving beneath the heavy chain mail.

  ‘Who was the dead girl?’ I asked a crone who backed away at the sight of my desperate eyes.

  ‘Where’s Linza?’ I shot at a pair of frightened children. ‘She’s Batavian. Linza? Do you know her? Linza?’

  ‘Felix?’

  I turned.

  She stood in the alleyway, a bucket of water held in both hands, a look of confusion on her face. She was alive.

  ‘Linza,’ I breathed, my relief followed instantly by regret at jumping to morbid conclusions, ‘I was worried you—’

  She sliced off my feeble words: ‘Are you my friend?’ she demanded, catching me off guard, her blue eyes now lost beneath a frown.

  ‘Of … of course,’ I stumbled.

  Linza placed the bucket down. Her fingers ran through blond hair dirtied by labour. ‘You only come to look for me when I’m dead?’ she finally accused. There was no heat in her tone, only disappointment.

  I said nothing. I had nothing to say, because it was true.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled, cursing my stupidity. Cursing my warped mind. ‘I …’

  Why did I think this way? Act this way? I had thought about this woman for d
ays. She was here all of that time, literally trapped within the same four walls as I was. Why had I made no attempt to see her – to talk to her – until I thought that she was a cut-up body dumped in a latrine?

  What the fuck was wrong with me?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated, my words heavy with self-reproach.

  My apology was honest. Linza saw that. Her frown softened, but she held her distance.

  ‘Do you only talk to dead people?’ she pressed me sadly, before realizing that the handful of civilians were watching our exchange avidly. ‘Come with me.’ She gestured towards a building, tired of their scrutiny.

  I followed her away from prying eyes. ‘I didn’t come here to upset you,’ I told her once we were in the privacy of a wooden awning.

  ‘Do I look upset?’ She shook her head. ‘I am worried.’

  ‘I can teach you how to look after yourself, and how to fight?’ I offered quickly, desperate to be a help and not a burden. ‘And I know a safer place for you to stay. My friend is the quarter—’

  ‘I am worried for you,’ Linza confided. ‘You, Felix, when you run around looking for death. Looking for hurt. You have friends. They are alive and they are here, but when do you live with them? When do you think about living, and not dying?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Shut up,’ she told me gently. ‘I don’t want you to speak. I want you to think. I want you to enjoy.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Fuck!’ She laughed with frustration. ‘Shut up, Felix!’ she ordered me, waving her arms to drive home her point. ‘I am not stupid. I know I can die here. I know I can die out there. We can all die. We will all die. I don’t need to think about it every. Single. Hour. And neither do you,’ she offered with a smile.

  I had the sense then to hold my tongue. Silence fell, and with it, unease. I felt as though I had walked into an ambush. A killing ground. I was a yard away from this woman who had cost me sleep and caused me panic. If she were an enemy, I could cross that space and kill her before she breathed. Being who she was, that yard was as great an obstacle as the blue sea where I had sat on the pier and dreamed.

  ‘You remind me of someone,’ I admitted, thinking back on those blissful days.

  ‘You too,’ she slowly confessed.

  I didn’t dare meet her pale eyes. ‘Your husband?’

  I saw the smallest of nods in the corner of my vision.

  ‘Who?’ she then asked as she reached out, her fingers falling on to my shoulder, her gaze irresistibly drawing my own.

  Looking up, I saw comfort in blue eyes. Comfort and love. It was not born of lust, but kinship, the recognition of a fellow wounded soul. That compassion took me back to a life before war and suffering. To a time where I had looked into eyes like hers, and known that each breath, each touch, was a blessing to be cherished.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ I promised.

  And I did.

  The century stood in formation. Afternoon was turning to dusk, and, as was the wartime ritual within the legions, all fighting men of the garrison would man the walls or wait as fully equipped reserves should the Germans choose to appear and attack in the twilight. No man expected such an eventuality, but no commander wanted to be the one who overlooked the procedure and woke to a blade in his guts.

  I was exhausted. Opening my soul to Linza and telling her of my own lost love had drained me more than any forced march could do. My head felt muggy and heavy; my shoulders ached beneath my mail. I was exhausted, but despite the fatigue, I felt fresh. As if, in some inexplicable way, I had accomplished something. Like the times that I had left the gymnasium battered and bruised, I knew that I would wake in the morning and feel the pain, but that ache would be a welcome signal that I had improved myself.

  I looked to the front of the formation. Centurion H was there and caught my eye. He smiled at me, hopeful that I would vouch for him later that evening so that he could enjoy a night of ‘wine and tits’ at the enterprise of Titus and Metella.

  Suddenly, I saw the conspiratorial look on the centurion’s face change, the smile slipping as the brow beneath his helmet creased with question. H was no stickler for discipline, and so I allowed my neck the slightest twist to follow his look.

  Centurion Malchus approached with purpose. The cohort commander was dressed for war, his gaunt face tight, shoulders rigid. He was clearly in the mood for killing.

  ‘Century,’ H called to his troops. ‘Atten-shun!’

  Malchus made a hurried gesture, and H turned his back so that the hushed conversation between the officers was screened from their men. It was a short briefing, and when the centurions turned back to face the formation, H’s face was as grim as the man’s beside him.

  ‘This isn’t good,’ I heard Stumps whisper.

  ‘Fifth Century.’ Malchus spoke in a tone of iron. ‘In the last two nights there’s been three rapes and two murders in this fort. It’s a fucking disgrace, and shits all over the discipline that makes us who we are. We are Romans, not barbarians, and if you want to act like animals, then there will be fucking consequences!’

  My stomach tightened at the implied threat. The imposed discipline of Rome’s legions could be harsh, quick and lethal, and I wondered what measure Malchus was threatening, and why. It was true that rape was common in the world, and murder a fixture, but it seemed now that Prefect Caedicius was attempting to stamp out all and any forms of unrest. The prefect was charged with bringing the fort through the siege, and to do so he required strict order. In the Roman Empire, that order was bought through blood. With every other man in the ranks, I awaited Malchus’s next words with a knot in my guts.

  ‘If there’s going to be killing,’ the man snarled, ‘then it’s going to be out there.

  ‘The prefect wants a raid on the hairy bastards, and this century’s drawn the honour. We march out as soon as it’s dark, and we don’t come back without some heads. Lots of fucking heads.’

  ‘You heard the cohort commander.’ H stepped forwards after leaving a moment for Malchus’s threatening order to sink in. ‘When I fall you out, section commanders get amongst your blokes. Strip your kit. No shields, no helmets. Blacken up whatever shines. Anything else, sir?’ he asked the cohort commander.

  Malchus shook his head. There was nothing but killing on his mind, and so H opened his mouth: ‘Century, falllll out!’

  After we made the standing right turn and the formation broke up into shouted commands and hurried whispers, I hustled across to my centurion. H caught my eye, and raised an eyebrow in question.

  ‘My man, Stumps,’ I began, ‘can he get back to the quartermaster’s?’

  H gave an apologetic shake of his head. ‘We need every man in the century for this, Felix. Balbus can’t soldier until further notice, and so your boy is going to have to march out with the rest of us. I’m sorry. I don’t pretend to know what you guys went through in the forest, but orders are …’

  I gave a glum nod, resigned.

  ‘No hard feelings?’ the centurion asked. I knew well enough why he was anxious for my approval, seeing me as the scarred and dangerous veteran who had cut his way out from the enemy trap when almost all others had fallen. Malchus saw the same, thinking me the bloodthirsty hero. If only they fucking knew.

  ‘Of course not, H.’ I was forgetting rank for a moment, pretty certain that he would approve of me using his nickname.

  ‘Been a while since I did something like this,’ the man admitted, smiling to cover his nerves. ‘Drew some blood on the walls, but … different when there’s nothing between you and them, isn’t it?’

  It was.

  ‘I should get to my section,’ I said. ‘Good luck tonight.’

  ‘Look after my lads,’ H told me, offering his hand. I took the strong grip, and then went to join my comrades.

  The barrack room was filled with my men and their industry, but talk was reduced to the bare essentials: the requests to pass something out of reach, or to help tighten straps and sharpen blades
.

  ‘You tried to get me off it?’ Stumps greeted me with a little accusation.

  I shrugged my armoured shoulders. ‘You’re coming.’

  ‘You still tried though,’ he grunted. ‘I haven’t forgotten how to soldier, you know.’

  Nothing good could come of the conversation, and so I ignored my friend, instead addressing the section as a whole, and repeating the orders that H had issued.

  ‘When you think you’re done get outside and jump around,’ I then added. ‘Anything loose that makes a noise, strap it down or leave it here.’

  ‘You didn’t have any casualties last time, did you?’ Statius suddenly piped up. He was slower than the other men in his preparations, and I noticed his eyes had grown a little wider. He reminded me of a rabbit that had caught a scent.

  ‘We didn’t,’ I confirmed.

  ‘That was last time,’ Brando grunted. ‘We got them with their trousers down. Tonight won’t be so easy.’

  ‘Ready or not, we’ll gut them all the same,’ Folcher spoke up confidently. ‘Arminius has gone to fight. He’s left behind the fat and lazy. We’ll gut them, Brando. It will be a good night.’

  Brando did not argue, and I could see that both of the Batavians were eager for the raid. They were true warriors, these German-born, and I wondered how long Rome could contain their cousins to the east of the Rhine.

  Attempting nonchalance, Statius opened his mouth as he put away his shield. ‘I could go to the hospital, and see if Balbus is fit for duty?’

  The idea reeked of malingering, and Stumps recognized the purpose of the words as easily as I had. ‘You’ll strap your sandals up and earn your pay, you mincing little cunt,’ he sneered. ‘Try and pull your half-arsed soldiering out there tonight, and I’ll dry fuck you with this blade.’

  ‘I was only asking.’ Statius spoke sullenly to the floor.

  ‘Fifth Century, form up!’ came the inevitable call from outside. ‘Section commanders, get a grip of your blokes. Let’s go!’

  ‘Here we go then.’ Dog tried to smile, and I felt the eyes of the section turn towards me – some were scared, some were eager, some were vacant, and yet all looked to me for guidance, and survival. Perhaps a great leader would have fired them up with words and promises, but I was not Marcus, Malchus or Titus. I was just me, and I was terrified. What the fuck was there to say?