Eagle in the Snow: The Classic Bestseller

by Wallace Breem

  I said to Quintus, “Don’t charge home into a mass that size. It’s like trying to drive your fist through a barrel of glue. Ride round them and cut them down on the perimeter.”

  He wiped the sweat from his eyes. “I’m sorry. I thought it was worth a try.” He hammered the pommel of his sword angrily. “With only two more alae I could have broken them into pieces.”

  I said patiently, “If we go on like this, it is we who will break into pieces.”

  There was a long lull in the fighting, while the wounded went to the rear, and the men’s wounds stiffened in the cold. I issued a ration of biscuit and vinegar to all ranks, and two hours later we tried again. I pulled Fredegar’s Franks back into line with the left wing of the archers, split my reserves into two halves and pushed them out towards the wings, and then ordered the whole line to move forward until contact was established with the cavalry. In this way we gained about four hundred yards of ground, while the enemy watched us from a distance and made no move. Then I ran the carroballistae forward and they opened fire at two hundred yards, supported by a screen of bowmen who had instructions to fire into the air, so as to drop their arrows into the enemy centre. As the nine inch bolts tore through men’s stomachs, and smashed ribs and backbones at a single blow, the Vandals fell back sullenly. I ordered the advance, and the cohorts’ first waves moved out at a trot. The two lines met, wavered and again held. The enemy cavalry waited on the flanks, watching our horse, while we goaded them with arrow fire from the wings. I sounded the trumpet, and Fredegar and Scudilio moved out to take the enemy on the flanks. More men were pouring out of their camp now and forming up on the rear of their centre. The carroballistae on my wings now opened fire and an enemy horseman went down at every shot. Angered into action they moved outwards to where my cavalry stood waiting patiently for my order. I waited till they were well clear of their main body, and then ordered the trumpet to be sounded. Our cavalry charged, and within three minutes it was all over. Half the Vandals were unhorsed and dead, the other half was in flight back to the camp. With no horse to oppose them, the two alae, led by Quintus and Fabianus, fell upon the enemy’s flanks and began to ride round the Vandals, working their way in, closer and closer to the centre. Slowly my front line began to move forward again. Still more men came streaming across the plain to help the enemy host. They were principally bowmen, and, from their position at the rear, they began to fire inwards, regardless of whether they struck our horse, or their own foot. Our men, who had fought all day in grim silence, now began to shout, as though they sensed that victory was within their grasp.

  “Now,” I said to Aquila, and the two reserves on the flanks moved into action. At the same time, Flavius broke from the copse and led his men straight through Scudilio’s and into the weakening left flank of the Quadi, who began to give ground rapidly. I blew the “Advance” and ordered my bodyguard to mount. “They’ll break,” I cried to Agilio excitedly. “Any moment now and they will break.”

  At that moment there came a sudden wailing cry, which even I could hear above the shouting and the dreadful, familiar clatter of iron upon iron. Our cavalry checked—it was an appalling sight—and began to break backwards, as though overtaken by panic and fear. This feeling spread to the infantry and they hesitated, and then began to give ground. Through a gap in a flurry of horsemen, I saw a figure in a red cloak, lying across its horse’s neck, and being cantered back under escort. I tried desperately to rally the infantry, but they were giving way now steadily, each rank retiring, in turn, through the next. “Come on,” I shouted to Agilio. We cantered through our own men—I heard our foot shout, “Ware horse”—and saw their startled faces drop away from me. Then we were moving at a fast gallop into the midst of a horde of yelling, excited Vandals. The weight of our charge, its very unexpectedness, carried us through and out the other side, leaving a swathe of dying and broken bodies behind us. We turned quickly, in the midst of their startled archers at the rear, cutting down every man we could reach; and then reformed and charged back. There is nothing quite so demoralising as being attacked from the rear. To this the Vandals and their allies were no exception. They broke away from us, their advance crumbled uncertainly into isolated fragments of ragged, exhausted and defiant men, so that, when we had ridden clear, and the cohorts had reformed, they turned and withdrew slowly towards their camp, collecting their wounded as they did so. A few minutes later I gave the signal to retreat, and the tired centuries plodded back across the blooded snow to the safety of the ditches, the palisade and the camp.

  I gave my horse to my orderly and walked to the signal tower. Every man I passed gave me a salute or a grin, or a greeting of some kind; and every man seemed to be wounded. I felt exhausted and sick. We had so nearly succeeded; we had so nearly failed.

  A voice shouted my name, and Fabianus rode his horse towards me, picking his way carefully between the crowds of men making for their tents. “They are coming,” he cried. “The reinforcements are on the way.”

  I shook my head. “You must be mad.”

  He said, excitedly, “No. There is a column of infantry a good half mile down the Treverorum road.”

  I walked out with him, and I could feel the excitement spread around me, as the word was passed from one tired and wounded man to another. Marius joined me, wiping his sword on a piece of rag. Aquila came up, limping from a cut across the thigh. Scudilio was there, too; and Fredegar was with him, his terrible battle axe resting across his shoulders.

  The dark column, heads bent against the driving lash of the wind, moved towards us at a slow pace. At their head was a man on horseback. Two cohort commanders walked slowly to join us, one of them half carried by the other. The wounded man was Flavius, his left arm wrapped in dirty bandages. We stood there, smiling stupidly, and waiting. We could be sure of victory now. I was so relieved I felt almost happy. “Mithras,” I said aloud. “My prayers have been answered.” I turned my head and saw Flavius watching me, a startled and disbelieving look upon his white face. He said, “It—it cannot be the—I can see the rear of the column from here.”

  I said cheerfully, “It is the advance guard then. That is good enough for me. Let us go and greet them. They have come in good time.”

  We met their leader on the road behind the camp, and he dismounted, in advance, when he saw us coming.

  “Artorius,” I said.

  The Curator of Treverorum flushed at my tone, and then drew himself up and saluted awkwardly. He wore a leather tunic, leather breeches, and a leather helmet. Strapped to his waist was a long sword. His eyes flickered from face to face, and then he looked at me steadily. “I have come to put my sword at your service,” he said. He spoke rather fast, like a man who has been practising what to say. He spoke defiantly, too, as though he thought I might laugh at him. His men had come to a ragged halt behind. They were similarly equipped; not one man wore armour, but each had either a spear or a sword.

  “What of the Army of Gaul?” I said harshly.

  “It—it is on its way.”

  “I don’t believe it. Chariobaudes wrote—”

  “He changed his orders,” said Artorius quickly. His eyes flickered and then he stared defiantly, for a moment, at the wounded Flavius. “They are marching to Treverorum, to our— to your aid.”

  “You have come on ahead?” I was too tired to cope with the problem of Chariobaudes and his shifting mind.

  “Yes.” He looked, with frightened curiosity, around him. He was used to the bustle of a forum; not the squalid muddle of a battlefield. “I know I am breaking the law. I have no authority to bear arms, since I am only a civilian. I don’t know what the Praefectus Praetorio will say.” He paused, and I remained silent. “I wish to help,” he added in a low voice.

  “How many men have you?”

  “Only two thousand. Some are gladiators and slaves, to whom I have given their freedom. I had no real authority to do that either, I suppose.”

  I was silent with disappointment. He tugg
ed at his helmet and then held it, awkwardly, in the crook of his arm, as he had seen my officers do. “I spoke to the Bishop. I felt I must do something.”

  “Of course.” I turned away. Two thousand men out of a city of eighty thousand. . . . I felt too sick to speak. He came after me, stumbling over the slippery ground. He said, “You haven’t accepted my. . . .” His voice trailed away. He cleared his throat, nervously. He said, “We want to help. I—” He broke off, as he tried to avoid a wounded man. “Don’t send us back. We can be of some use, surely. Besides, the men could not go back now. They are tired out.”

  I said, “Yes, and I and my men are tired, too. We are soldiers.”

  He flinched at my voice. He said desperately, “I know I am only the Curator; but I thought—”

  I turned my back on him. I went to the signal tower, leaving the column still standing upon the road, and my officers silent behind me. I would have struck him had he spoken again.

  I stumbled through the door. I sat down on my bedding roll and put my head in my hands. We had been so near to victory. Even if Chariobaudes did come in time, he had too few men to be of real help. We should be beaten just the same. The wind rattled the door. It was very cold, and I began to shiver. I knew what it was like now to be a defeated general.

  Fabianus came in. He said, “I would like to speak to you, sir.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “That was ungenerous,” he said.

  “Ungenerous! I?” I stood up, and he backed away. “He has had two years, and in two years he has done little except at the point of a sword. Now he comes whining with offers of help. What help will that ragged crew of comics be, do you imagine? Help. When it’s too late. Too late, do you hear.”

  Fabianus said, “It is you who are ungenerous. He has come to help, and you, sir, turn your back on him.”

  “It is what he deserves.”

  He said, doggedly, “I don’t agree, sir.”

  “Why?”

  He did not answer at first. He stood there, his hands clenched at his sides, just looking at me, tired and resentful. It was how his father had looked when I told him that the sentry who slept at his post must be executed.

  “Why?” I said again.

  “Because—because he has come out here to die with the rest of us, and that makes him my friend, if not yours.”

  I got to my feet and went towards him. He did not move. “How dare you speak to me like that. Don’t presume too far upon my friendship with your father.”

  It was then that he lost control over himself. He said, angrily, “If I dare, it is because you taught me how to speak to an emperor when he is in the wrong.”

  He turned and went out. I called after him but he did not come back.

  Quintus was brought to the signal tower an hour later. He had suffered an arrow wound in the neck, and had lost blood. He lay on his bed, grey-faced with shock, his hands, raw with the cold, lying limply upon the blankets that covered him.

  He opened his eyes. He said, “I am sorry. I ruined the day. My men lost heart; the idiots.” He beat feebly upon the blankets.

  “No,” I said. “It would have happened anyway. They are too strong for us, and we are too exhausted. Fresh troops might have done it, I agree. But our men—” I broke off and sat on the stool beside him. What else was there to say?

  “Will you try again to-morrow?”

  I shook my head. “Our losses were tremendous. So were theirs; but they can afford them. We can’t risk losing another man. Flavius fought well. He timed that charge brilliantly.”

  He groaned. “I know. How many did we lose?”

  “Aquila is making a count now.”

  “Well, if we hold on, this relief army may come in time.”

  “Yes, of course.” I trimmed the wick of the oil lamp and poured water into a bowl and began to wash myself.

  He said, “Fabianus did well, too.” He paused and stared at the ceiling. “Agilio told me that Artorius has brought men from the city.”

  “Yes.”

  “He has told me what you said.”

  I dried my face on a towel and looked on my bed for a clean tunic. I had just one left. I put it on. Then I poured out two cups of wine. Still he did not look at me. He said, gently, “It is not politic for emperors to turn their backs on those who offer them support.”

  I said bitterly, “My horse is more dependable. And braver, too.”

  “Do you really think so? He could have been on his way to Arelate and safety by now, with the rest of them. It doesn’t matter about the past. It takes courage, Maximus, to sit alone in a panic-stricken city and decide that the right thing to do is to collect a few men with rusty swords, and go out to help a man who despises you.” He looked at me then. “I should know that. It takes even more courage to admit that you are wrong.”

  I did not answer him and he turned his face to the wall.

  Presently he said, in a tired voice, “What is the plan far to-morrow?”

  “Hold the ditches and the palisade. I shall use the cavalry only for counter-attacks and to relieve pressure, if things get difficult.”

  “Maximus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you wish now you had refused Stilicho’s request?”

  I was silent.

  “Do you?”

  “I am not afraid, Quintus, if that is what you mean.” I looked up, and saw him watching me with unhappy eyes. I smiled. I said, “You know, I was happy on the Wall. Yes, I mean that. I have never felt at home here in Germania.”

  He said, “If I hadn’t ridden to Eburacum that day—only Saturninus knew why I went. I owed so much.”

  “I understand.”

  He said, “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Get some sleep. We shall need all we can get from now on.”

  Later, I went the rounds of the camp. I inspected the sentries, cheered the wounded with stupid jokes, and talked with my cohort commanders. On my return, I saw a man being sick in the snow. I went across to him, thinking it was a wounded soldier who had been given too much broth. He straightened up when he heard me coming, and turned awkwardly away. I saw then that it was Artorius. He was bare-headed, and he had his hands to his mouth. I recognised the look on his face only too well, so I called after him.

  “No,” I said. “Just a moment.”

  He stopped and turned round, hopelessly. He tried to stand to attention, and I knew what it must be like to be the wild beast in the arena when it has cornered its human victim. It would have looked just like Artorius then.

  “Something disagreed with me,” he mumbled, and then added a hasty, ‘sir’, as though I might hit him for omitting it.

  “Are you very afraid?” I said.

  He nodded, his knuckles to his mouth. I could see his face quiver.

  “So am I,” I said. “I am too afraid to be sick any more.”

  He stared at me incredulously, as though I were laughing at him. “But you are a soldier,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, but it doesn’t stop you being afraid. We all are: it is the waiting before-hand. It’s not so bad when the battle line is drawn up, and you watch for the signal to advance. You can smell your own sweat and the sweat of the men beside you. You hug to yourself the feeling that they are there, guarding your left and your right. You bolster yourself up with little jokes out of a dry mouth, and they answer you, and you pretend it’s a game, like all the training exercises that have gone before. You pretend the worst that can happen is a dressing-down from the Legate and an extra fatigue from an irate centurion. Then the advance is sounded and the line moves forward. Inevitably, you spread out to avoid rough ground or a clump of bushes, and your companions are no longer within touching distance. You see the enemy hurl their javelins, and men scream and go down. You don’t worry about being hit; that’s the funny part of it. You have the soldier’s illusion of invulnerability. It is always the other man who will be wounded or killed—never yourself. And the more this happens—even though it is
to your friends—the stronger the feeling. If you didn’t have it, you could never advance at all.”

  I paused. His face had lost, for the moment any way, that frightened look. He was absorbed in what I was saying.

  I said, “But then, as you get closer to the waiting enemy, comes a terrible sense of isolation. The man on your left, five yards away, might as well be five thousand. It grows and grows, this feeling of loneliness, until you are sure that you must be the only man advancing in the whole of your army. Then, you are afraid, and you want to turn and run. Only a curious sense of pride keeps you going. And then the enemy strikes at you with his spear or his sword, and discipline and training take over, and from that moment on you don’t have time to worry about fear or loneliness any more. You just fight, and you go on fighting until it is all over.”

  He said, “You make it sound so easy.”

  “When it comes to the point, it is.”

  He lowered his head. “I thought I had the courage,” he said. “It seemed to be so easy in my room in the Basilica. They were all leaving, and I was ashamed. I knew then that we had let you down, and that somewhere out here you were all risking your lives, just for us. I thought—I thought I must do something too; even though it was so late. I didn’t know I was such a coward.” He tried hard to raise a smile. “It is humiliating,” he said. “You must despise people like me.”

  I said, “I was not generous earlier on. I am sorry. Will you forgive me?” I held out my hand and gripped him by the arm. “I know you are not a fighting man,” I said. “That is not so very important. But you have come to help us. That is important.”