Siege

by Geraint Jones

  The force Arminius had left behind was a considerable one, a few thousand men, but it had grown lazy. Stagnant. There were no challenged passwords, simply spoken greetings that even we could understand. The patrols were infrequent, predictably timed and lacklustre. The German tribes had shown themselves to be brutal and fierce in combat, but given the tedium of the grind of campaign, they now showed their amateur nature.

  ‘Germany breeds warriors,’ I had once been told by a veteran of the early campaigns. ‘Rome trains soldiers.’

  I saw the truth of that distinction now. Without the strict discipline that was the backbone of the legions, the German army appeared as nothing more threatening and hostile than any gathering of peoples.

  Of course, that would change quickly if we were caught in the open.

  The coming winter proved our ally in avoiding such detection. The nights grew bitter, and men clung to flaming campfires that warmed their hands but ruined their night vision. Tribesmen and camp followers stuck to their tents, leaving only when they had to. Frequent downpours washed away the enemy’s will to patrol.

  But nothing comes without a price. We had no tents to retreat within. Instead, hides of branch and leaves were our refuge. We lived in sodden clothes, dank and miserable. My nose was a constant spout of snot, my greatest fear of detection coming from a wayward sneeze or cough. We were becoming sick men, our stubbled beards dusted with frost on the harshest of mornings. Needing to maintain our silence, there was no means to complain. No means to encourage.

  It was not a happy existence, but we watched, we noted, and we learned.

  Eventually, H decided that we had learned enough. I knew this because that night, following the fall of darkness, he began to lead us eastwards. We walked for miles before we stopped, resting on our knees within the slippery confines of a woodland ditch.

  ‘Seen enough,’ he told us. Words were almost unfamiliar to the man after ten days of near total silence.

  We covered another eight miles before we stopped to build our hide, H anxious to make good speed and deliver our news to the fort. We were also on the last day of our rations, though there were plenty of icy streams to drink from.

  On the second night of our withdrawal, H stopped us with hours of darkness remaining.

  ‘Don’t want to turn up in daylight and get picked off by their scouts,’ he explained. ‘Not after this.’

  And so we spent our last night in the dirt. It began to rain, the stripped trees offering no protection from the wind-lashed hail that struck our skin. We huddled together, sleep an impossibility. Instead we thought of hot water. We thought of baths. We thought of food, and firelight, and dry clothes. We thought of our friends, and I thought of Linza.

  The next night, we returned to the fort.

  63

  Watchwords were called. The guard commander was summoned. The gate creaked open, and we stepped inside the walls.

  Torchlight greeted our arrival. What did those soldiers see by the flames? Weathered faces bearded like our enemy and as filthy as the lowest beggar in Rome. Clothes torn from bramble, soiled and repulsive.

  But it was our eyes that made them tense, for they were both wild, and sharp. They took in everything, and nothing. They were the eyes of men stripped of civilization, returned to their most primal. The soldiers knew that we were animals, and they had opened the gate to let us in.

  H led us at speed to the headquarters building. Already I saw word of our return begin to spread from the soldiers present. Soon, the entire fort would know that a trio of individuals had entered, barely recognizable as soldiers, yet possessing the watchwords that Malchus had ordered every man of the centuries to learn by heart.

  The guard commander escorted us inside the building at the fort’s centre. A nervous-looking clerk showed us to an empty room where we were to wait until the fort’s leadership could be roused.

  ‘Food and wine,’ Titus growled at the clerk, who went scurrying in search of it.

  Prefect Caedicius arrived moments later. His face had thinned, but his eyes were alive.

  ‘Did you find us a way out?’ he asked, desperate to know if there was an escape from Arminius’s trap.

  It was H who spoke.

  ‘We did.’

  Dawn had come and gone by the time that we had finished our debriefing at the headquarters building. Malchus had arrived soon after Caedicius, and to both officers we had reported on all that we had witnessed of the German camp, and their movements.

  ‘We just need a storm,’ H concluded. ‘We get that, sir, and we have a chance.’

  ‘How are the skies looking?’ Caedicius asked of Malchus.

  ‘Good, sir. Cloud’s building. Winds are picking up. Could be as soon as tomorrow.’

  ‘Don’t waste any time, then. Get the garrison ready to move, and increase the patrols around the walls. Spread the word that anyone attempting to leave before I order it will be put to death. We can’t have word getting to the goat-loving scum.’

  ‘Understood, sir,’ Malchus grunted. ‘Is there anything else?’

  There was not, and Malchus left. If he had praise for Centurion H and the information we had brought, he took it with him. Caedicius noticed, and smiled apologetically.

  ‘The cohort commander, as do I, knows that you have suffered hardship to bring us this information. Titus, you can consider this your slate cleaned. For you two’ – he turned to myself and H – ‘when we reach the Rhine, I’ll be recommending you both for the Golden Crown.’

  The Golden Crown. An award for valour which brought with it the doubling of pay. Our commanders knew that the promise of financial gain was the best way of encouraging soldiers to commit deeds that they paid for in blood.

  We murmured thanks. Coin was not in our minds now. Fresh clothes, our beds and food were – Titus had thrice dispatched the frightened clerk to fetch us more bread and wine.

  ‘You’re dismissed, men.’ Caedicius put out his hand to shake ours one by one. ‘You’ve given us a fighting chance, and that’s all a soldier can ask for. Take the time to rest. I’ll send instructions that you’re exempt all duties and rationing until we get our storm. Take the rest, and build your strength.

  ‘We’re going home.’

  The prefect was wrong. I would never return to my home, but I was now in the closest thing that I had known to it – a barrack room with comrades.

  ‘All right, lads?’ Stumps spoke up nonchalantly from his bunk as we entered. ‘Did one of you shit himself?’ he asked disgustedly, sniffing the air. The act held for a few moments more before our excited friend sprang forwards, taking us in an embrace that drove the air from our lungs. Brando and Micon followed soon after, adding to the crush.

  ‘Seriously, though.’ Stumps grimaced, stepping back. ‘I’ve never smelt anything so bad.’

  ‘Sorry if it offends you,’ Titus replied, before lunging quickly towards his friend, grabbing Stumps’s surprised face and shoving it into a rancid armpit.

  ‘What was that?’ Titus asked as cries of muffled horror and laughter echoed about the room.

  Stumps gasped as he was let free. ‘People have been condemned to the arena for less than that.’ He scowled. ‘Nice beards though. Yours looks really good, Felix.’

  ‘You like it?’ I asked, feeling at the dark whiskers.

  ‘Of course I do.’ He smiled. ‘It covers your face.’

  Laughter erupted anew, relief in every note.

  ‘What can we do to help?’ Brando offered.

  ‘Stoke that fire up,’ Titus told him. ‘I’m going to wash, then I want to feel like I’m back in the desert.’

  ‘Where’s H?’ Stumps asked, but he wasn’t concerned. Doubtless the rumour mill had already informed him that three men had entered the fort that night.

  ‘Gone to his own quarters. Wanted some peace.’

  ‘Probably wanking himself silly after two weeks.’ Stumps laughed, full of humour now that his friends were returned to him.

  ‘M
aybe,’ Titus countered. ‘Why don’t you go offer him a hand?’

  ‘I see you got funnier on your picnic.’ Stumps rolled his eyes. ‘I hate to think what you lot were doing to stay warm. But look, what happens in the field, stays in the field. Worked for the Spartans.’

  Titus shook his head. ‘You done?’

  ‘I could probably scrape out a few more.’

  Titus snorted. ‘If your mother’d scraped out more I could be sitting by a hot stove now, instead of talking to a dickhead. Now be a mate and get those flames going.’

  Stumps obliged with a smile. His eyes were on the fire, but I knew that his next words were meant for me.

  ‘I can see that you’re gagging to ask.’

  ‘I am,’ I admitted.

  My friend turned to me, brother to brother, and grinned. ‘She looks as bad as you do.’ He spoke warmly. ‘Minus the beard, of course. She’s been worried about you, mate, and you know what that means.’

  ‘I should go and see her,’ I confirmed.

  ‘Well, yeah, but …’ His voice trailed away as he took in the dishevelled figure in front of him. ‘Probably not when you’re looking like you just crawled out of a grave.’

  I laughed, and took the wineskin that Micon held out to me.

  I was home.

  64

  Hot air with my comrades was followed by hot food, hot water and hot shaves. Stumps had already acquired clean clothing for our return – a symptom of his friendship – and I now pulled these on to my gaunt frame as our comrades quizzed Titus about our mission.

  ‘Just let me sleep, you bastards,’ he growled from his back, lids shut.

  ‘You see a theatre around here?’ Stumps asked his friend. ‘We’ve been standing like spare pricks on the wall. Give us some entertainment.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in the quartermaster’s?’ Titus rumbled back. ‘Go stack your blankets on the hand carts ready to leave.’

  ‘Tell him about that, Stumps,’ said Micon with a rare smile of mischief.

  Stumps’s own face turned sour and curdled. ‘Had to bribe the bastard Albus to reverse the transfer.’ His voice was forlorn.

  Titus kept his eyes shut, but his thick chest bounced with laughter. ‘You got the job you always wanted and you paid to come back here? You soft bastard.’

  ‘Someone has to look after the suicide section,’ Stumps countered. ‘That’s what the rest of the century calls us, thanks to you lot. Especially you, Felix. Volunteering for everything like you’re tired of living. I’m starting to think you’re one of those strange ones that likes women to hit his balls.’

  I allowed my friend a smile for that insult. Amongst my friends, and soon to set things right with Linza, a quiet confidence had settled over me. Perhaps it was the power of hot water, but I felt invigorated and full of life. I was under no illusions that there were trials to come, but for now I was content to take Linza’s advice and live in the moment, rather than fear the possible, and the inevitable.

  ‘Titus!’ Stumps exclaimed dramatically. ‘You missed it! He smiled, and you missed it!’

  ‘I’m going now,’ I told them.

  ‘Have fun.’ Stumps smirked before turning back to Titus. ‘Come on, mate, give us one bloody story.’

  As I pulled back the partition to the equipment room I heard a groan as Titus gave up his battle for peace and began to tell his friend how a group of foraging German women had come within twenty yards of our hiding place.

  ‘One of them was the most delicious thing I’ve ever seen,’ Titus explained as I opened the door, the cold instantly assaulting my freshly shaven face. ‘I’m not going to lie. I was seriously considering certain death, just to have a go with her.’

  Stumps’s reply was lost to me as the door closed quickly behind me, taken by the wind.

  I turned and made my way in the direction of the civilian quarters. I wondered what I would find there, now that word would have reached them of our intended departure. The men of the legions were drilled in such decampment, and they would have prepared their kit and equipment within hours, the labour made easy by Caedicius’s order that only a day’s ration and fighting gear would be carried. The message in such an order was clear – this was an evacuation, not a relocation. I wondered if the civilians would understand that.

  ‘Felix,’ a voice called from behind me.

  Livius, the section commander to whom I was now accountable. Titus had been incorporated into our section too, which now numbered nine men. I worried that this anomaly was the reason that he approached me now, about to break the news that our circle would be split up, and one of us moved on to a section of strangers.

  I should have prepared myself for worse.

  ‘We’ve just been moved up to immediate notice to move. Prefect’s orders,’ the soldier told me.

  His youthful face was excited at the prospect of our attempted escape. My own had turned to stone.

  I knew what that notice would mean.

  ‘No one can leave the barracks.’

  I re-entered the room a different man than I had left it. My comrades saw as much in the defeated slope of my shoulders.

  They grimaced in sympathy for me when I told them why.

  ‘Albus wants us all in armour, helmets on, ready to go.’

  Stumps spat at the order. ‘Takes all day to put a helmet on now, does it? How big’s his fucking head? We can be good to go in no time. We’re all packed. Not like we turned up with a villa’s worth of furniture, is it?’

  ‘I’m just telling you what he said, Stumps.’ I spoke tonelessly, suddenly drained by the knowledge that I was kept from Linza, with her so close.

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ Stumps apologized, sensing my disappointment. ‘You’ll see her when we get to the Rhine, mate,’ he offered. ‘We may get stood back down anyway. You know how these things go.’

  But the strong winds flirting with the barrack block told me otherwise. Soon rain was lashing against the walls.

  ‘It’s got legs,’ Titus opined, having opened the doorway to look at the sky.

  Brando had joined him. A native of the lands, he knew the German seasons better than any of us. ‘We’ll go tonight.’

  But darkness was a long time away. To leave in daylight would be suicide, offering the German scouts ample time to ride ahead and warn their army, and so the order to remain in barracks chafed at me like a rope around my neck.

  ‘I’m going to the latrines,’ I told my comrades.

  ‘I’ll keep you company,’ Titus offered. ‘Sound of this rain has me pissing like a horse.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ Stumps smirked. ‘Develop some new friendship whilst you were away, did you, boys? Well, enjoy,’ he joked, hoping to lift my mood.

  It didn’t work.

  I stepped outdoors, the rain whipping across my face. Its touch was cold, and violent. I savoured it.

  ‘You don’t need to keep an eye on me,’ I told Titus as we walked to the latrines.

  ‘It’s not that.’ He shook his head, surprising me by coming to a stop. We were short of the latrines, fully exposed to the elements.

  ‘Not a good place to piss?’ I spoke up, wondering at what was in the man’s mind.

  ‘I don’t like the odds on this one,’ Titus confided in me with a look towards the shrouded skies. ‘There’re still chests full of coin in the forests, Felix. You can take the chance to get them if you make it out.’

  A legion’s pay chests. A fortune.

  As the approaching storm assaulted me, I thought of what those coins could buy: a ship; a home; a new beginning.

  ‘Where?’ I asked my friend. I had been born with a sense of direction and distance, and my time in the legions and escape from that service had only honed the talent. I trusted in my ability to find what Titus was offering.

  ‘You sure you don’t want to write it down?’

  ‘I’ll remember.’

  And so, closing in so that his words would not be lost to the wind, Titus told me where I could fin
d a fortune. When he was finished, I repeated the directions back to him.

  ‘It’s a needle in a haystack,’ Titus acknowledged. ‘But at least we know the haystack.’

  We said nothing as we went to piss in the latrines, our thoughts caught up on that day when three eagles had tumbled, and Titus had walked into the forest alone, leaving his comrades behind him. It had been a day of misery, and bloodshed.

  Tonight would be no different.

  65

  Wind carried rain below the brim of my helmet and into my eyes. It forced it into every crack of my armour. Every space between clothing and flesh. The rain felt all the harder for its coldness, the fat drops like the pebbles I had thrown at Marcus as a child, back when we had fought our first war as toddlers on the beach.

  Marcus. I would see him soon. The certainty of it gnawed at my conscience like a rabid wolf. It was not a reunion I was ready to embrace.

  I was not the only man to stand miserable in the pelting rain. We had formed as a century at the excited calls of the company runner. His cries of ‘Prepare to move!’ had sent us reaching for shields and weapons. Men had streamed from the barrack rooms to form up before the block, some bolting quickly to empty bladders before the formation was fully formed.

  ‘It’s still fucking daylight,’ Stumps had scowled.

  By that light I saw the faces of the men about me scratched red by the cold. We stood impotent, awaiting an order to move and lurch forwards towards the gate. All that we knew was that we were leaving. The details were in the minds of our commanders. There was nothing for the foot soldier to do but stamp his sandals, blow air on to his hands and think.

  It was the final action that caused me the most hardship. I had learned to live with the brutal conditions of the continent, and I fancied that not even a German winter could match those I had endured fighting on Pannonian mountainsides. I could master shaking limbs, quivering jaw and chattering teeth, but what I could not master was the chariot race of thoughts that wheeled around my skull as if it were the Circus Maximus: an endless loop of reproach and regret.