East & West- Catharsis

by David Capel

  “Ahem. It has come to our attention that, err, there have been new developments to the East. We, err, I have decided to send a detachment of men on ahead to join the main army, while the main body of us will remain guarding the rear. Taxiarch Lascaris will explain further.”

  I took his pace and filled my lungs.

  “Romans! Men of the Seventh Taron! The crisis is at hand.” I paused for effect while the men murmured and looked at each other.

  “Taxiarch Tournikos has decided to appoint me to lead a detachment to join the Imperial army and engage the enemy forthwith. We will march out in the next half hour. I am looking for volunteers, and you must decide whether to come with us, or to stay here with the rearguard.

  The choice is clear. I will lead to you battle, and the manly risks and rewards that entails. You will see combat, and you will reap the rewards that come from defeating an enemy who has been plundering the land these last few years. You will go home the richer, both in honour and in booty.

  Or you can stay here to guard this valley. I know from my journey here how the country round about is teeming with enemy raiders. So to stay is not risk free. If you do, then be wary, and set your watch carefully at night!

  Now, I will wait for those who will come with me two hundred paces to the East of this place, but not for long. Gather your thoughts and your equipment! You have half an hour.”

  With that I stalked off into the morning light. It was not a particularly inspiring or original speech, perhaps, but my plans did not rely on oratory alone. For now Stethatos and his veterans went to work. The men had just enough time to make a decision, without the time to mull it over and allow stasis to set in.

  Stethatos made it clear to them that he and the best men were leaving, along with the quartermaster and the spare equipment. So it was by no means safe to stay by the river here indefinitely.

  As I had hoped, the men of the Seventh may have been inexperienced, but they were hardy and honest. One by one, and then in little groups, they came over to me, and I made a point of greeting every one and asking their names. As they arrived I divided them into small bands, some with a mix of ages, but a few made up just of young men, or of old.

  In all about a hundred and twenty men joined me, more than I had expected. They included the two soldiers, Loukas and Nikos, who had served as Tournikos’ aides. At last Stethatos and his veteran soldiers came up, and I placed one in command of each of the small sections of men that I had assembled. The centurion reported that the rest of the regiment were clustered around the tent with the old taxiarch. I decided that there was nothing to be gained from delaying and talking to him further, so I made the signal to leave immediately.

  After just an hour on the march I felt exhausted. The strain of my military coup caught up with me. I mulled over my apparent triumph and I felt drained by the enormity of what I had accomplished. For a moment the risk seemed appalling. What was I doing, watching a rag-taggle of men, supposedly Roman soldiers under my command, walk past me? I sat down on a rock and gazed at the narrowing valley ahead of me. On either side the walls rose sheer as the path rose to a pass into the next valley. The stream gurgled busily twenty paces to the left. I wiped my brow on my sleeve and glanced briefly at the hot August sun. A sense of helplessness filled me.

  Then a soldier walked past and said “Hail, Taxiarch, are we off to war?” and he laughed with the sheer joy of it. Then another called “Hey, Taxiarch, when are we stopping for lunch? Have you prepared our meal?” and the others around him joined his laughter.

  Yet another stopped by me and said anxiously, “Sir, do you know when we will return home? My mother asked me, but I didn’t know.”

  So I stood once again and shouted to all of them “Come on! We’re going to save the Roman army! But first we’ll stop for lunch in an hour!” And they laughed again, despite the feebleness of my joke. The truth was that they were as scared as they were excited, and needed to put their trust in someone. The days of drift and indecision beforehand had unnerved them, and they saw me as a source of confidence and security.

  This realisation buoyed me and I decided to walk slowly back to the end of the column as it trooped past me, slapping backs and murmuring encouragement, and testing my memory of their names.

  I decided to halt for a full two hours in the heat of the day. At that time it was a torture to walk in the dust of the men trudging in front of you. I plunged into the stream and some of them followed me. Others opened flasks of wine, and I ordered Stethatos to drain them into the river.

  At the same time I organised a group of the younger men to head on before us as a scouting party. I encouraged them to range far ahead of the column, covering the ground in every direction and reporting back to Stethatos, who commanded a group of older men as a vanguard, marching a mile ahead of the main column. My hope was that the more mature group would be able to decide whether the main column needed to change its route according to the intelligence gained by the scouts.

  This was our pattern of march then, for the three days that it took to reach our destination. We marched from dawn to dusk, with the long midday break. It was my very own Anabasis, though we never saw the sea.

  Our scouts spread out ahead of us, and the column was divided into small sections of a dozen men each, marching with fifty paces between them to minimise the dust. The men were already fit from labouring in the fields and largely took to the forced regime well.

  It was broken country now, a land of rocky hills and small winding valleys under a blazing white sky. We passed a number of deserted settlements, and for the first two days did not see a soul. My main concern was of course the fighting capability of my new command, and I began to worry at the absence of any sign of the main Roman army. My great fear was to come across a large Turkish force, against which these untrained men would have little chance either of victory or escape. This was the reason for my emphasis on scouting, and my caution paid me back handsomely at the end of the second day.

  The sun was just touching the hills to the West and our shadows lengthened like spears before us when a soldier ran up to me from ahead. By chance I was near the front of the column and I kept walking as I asked him what was amiss.

  “Turks, sir” he said, panting in his excitement, “In a valley just to the North of here.”

  “How many? Have they seen us?”

  “We don’t think so. It’s a small band. Three dozen at most.”

  “Horses?”

  “Yes, sir”

  Forgetting my fatigue after the long day’s march, I ran on with the scout and found Stethatos waiting a half mile ahead, conversing with his section.

  “What do you think?” I gasped, doubling over to catch my breath.

  “Well, they don’t know we’re here. So we could probably get by just ignoring them. I doubt they’d attack such a large body anyway, so we could pull in our scouts and…”

  “No, wait. I have another plan. How far away are they from here?”

  “Perhaps two miles to the North from here, over that hill.”

  “Right, Centurion, take your section, and as many scouts as you can find, and get as close to the Turks as you can from the eastern side. Work you way round from that direction and then hunker down at nightfall. Wait for them in the dawn and we will drive them towards you.”

  He looked up at the hill doubtfully. “You’re sure about this?”

  “As sure as I can be. If we’re lucky this will be a great opportunity. There’s a good chance they’ll escape, but it’s worth a try. They’re too few to do us any damage whatever happens”.

  “Fine, we’ll give it a go.”

  As Stethatos set off obliquely to the North-east I hastened back to the main column. Each section I came across I ordered to change course and make their way up the hill in open order, as quickly as they could, and then to lie down and rest wherever they found themselves at dusk. The quartermaster with his little group of mules I told to find cover wherever they could and lie low
.

  As the column dissolved into little groups of men struggling up the hillside I moved among them, telling the section commanders what I had in mind.

  “Remember. No fires! And have your men ready before dawn.”

  **

  I hardly slept at all that night. As the glow of the sun dissipated in the West and the firmament of stars blazed in the night sky I crept forward among the humming crickets towards the ridge that overlooked the Turkish camp.

  Behind me I heard the small noises of my men as they settled down, trying to find some soft place to lie among the thorns and bushes on the dusty warm slope. Every clank of iron and muttered comment seemed magnified in the evening air, and I cursed even the section commanders as they hushed their men and tried to keep some sort of order in the gloom.

  I scrambled forward into the night, half crawling and half crouching as the noise of my own breath filled my ears. What seemed like a short slope of a few hundred yards became an arduous ascent in the dark, and I began to doubt my sense of direction, half twisting my ankles against the grassy tussocks that pocked the scree.

  At length I thought that I was lost altogether, and so stood up fully, only to see the glimmer of flame alarmingly close at hand to my right. I fell to my knees and squinted at the light, terrified lest my clumsy approach had been noticed.

  I lay there in the dust for an age until my eyes eventually picked out the details of what I could see below. The fire was actually a good two hundred paces away, and I could just make out a group of huddled men with one sitting a few paces away, apparently looking in the opposite direction from my vantage point. Twenty yards on either side were two smaller fires, with what I guessed were similar groups around them. I could see no horses in the gloom, though I fancied I could hear an occasional snort or shifting step a little way off to the right where I hoped Stethatos and his group lay hidden.

  Any soldier will tell you that a night action is prone to accident, confusion and chaos, as likely to advantage the defender as those attempting the ambush. Even I, new to warfare, could see that my bid to take the Turkish band was a gamble. Yet it seemed to me that it was a throw of the dice with no possible loss for us. The worst outcome would be a muddled scrabble in the dawn, with the raiders riding off unscathed.

  Still, I hoped for more than that. When I had waited several hours dozing fitfully and waking with a start at the secret rustles of the night creatures around me, I guessed more than saw the first glimmer of dawn and decided to make my move. I rose to my feet and retraced my steps as best I could. Again, it took longer than I anticipated, and when the grey morning light at last lit my way, for a few moments I could find no sign of my sleeping men. But then I came across one of the veterans and bade him rise to his feet and summon his troop.

  At first it seemed that I would have to find each scattered section and shake them into individual action, but before long the men sensed each others’ movement and they rose like ghosts in the growing light. I waved them forward and set out once again for the Turks.

  As we breasted the rise and I saw the place where the enemy lay encamped, the clanking noise of my men behind me seemed fit to raise the dead, let alone the wary raiders below us. Yet to my amazement nothing happened, and I worried for a moment that our quarry had already fled the scene.

  I had passed the place where I had lain the night when suddenly a shadow rose fifty paces in front of me and a harsh voice rang out in the valley floor. There was a rustling movement around it and then a flurry of urgent voices.

  Adrenalin filled me like a flame and I cried out, once and then again, more loudly “Come on! For Rome! Kill them! and in terror and excitement I blundered towards the foe, holding my spear in front of me.

  The strange noiselessness of battle engulfed me, so much so that I slowed for a moment and looked behind me, stumbling in the process, to check that my men were in pursuit. There they were, a ragged line not far behind, and for the first time I heard their haggard cries.

  I turned forward again and to my horror saw that the enemy, far from fleeing as in my imagination, seemed to be closing towards me with that fluid competence that always marked their movements. Suddenly the awful risk of my predicament became clear and the thrill of fear filled me. Would I die here, yards ahead of my motley group of farmers? A crooked shape reared up before me, and I had just the sense to hurl my spear rather than trying to close with him.

  It struck him with a thud. I do not think it pierced his side, for I found it loose a few moments later, but it was enough to distract him as I drew my sword and hacked at him and by sheer luck there was a ghastly jarring crack, and the handle of my sword turned and nearly slipped from my grasp. The Turk in front of me fell with a choking gasp, clutching at his face, and my momentum carried me over his body, so that I tripped and fell flat in the dust.

  I squirmed and wriggled away, half seeing two men stooping towards me, but before they could strike another spear flew over me and hit the one on the right full in the face and he fell back with a snap. In an instant three of my men had closed on the other. One went down as a blade flashed in the morning sun. The grunting, shouting melee swirled away from me for a moment. I stood again and saw my spear, and stooped to pick it up, ready to leap forward once more.

  There was a groan, and I turned to see my fallen foe, instantly forgotten, clawing at the ground trying to prop himself up once more. I steadied myself and took aim with my spear, hammering it forward with both arms into his chest. But it was a glancing blow, and I had to thrust once more, and then I kicked him back, sure that he was dead at last.

  I looked at the scene ahead. Already much of my group had overtaken me, and there were a couple of tussles of fighting men some paces on either side. But most of the Turks were running away up the valley, and I watched as one, half dressed, was caught and crudely hacked down by two Romans. But then I caught my senses once again and noticed the Turkish horses grazing loose not far away. Already two of the enemy had reached them.

  To my astonishment, I recognised the foremost. He was clad all in black, with an embroidered cloak that flapped behind him. It was Erkan, running like a devil across the plain to safety.

  “Him, that man!” I yelled incoherently. No-one heard me except one veteran, who stopped stupidly and cupped his ear.

  “The horses!” I shouted, gesticulating wildly, “Get the bloody horses.” I sprang forward and raced transversely down the slope trying to intercept them. I had no idea if anyone understood me, let alone followed me, but there was no time for cool command and structured leadership. I ran pell mell at Erkan and the animals, perhaps a hundred paces away, but it was too late. The Turks are born to horsemanship, and a dozen of them now had broken free of our initial assault and it would take them no time to leap aboard their mounts and escape.

  Yet then my trap was sprung. For as Erkan and one other swung into their saddles and the beasts whinnied and swirled in the thickets, there was another great shout from ahead, and a dense body of men charged towards them from the other side. It was Stethatos, and there was a short race until he and his men arrived among the horses at the same time as the bulk of the remaining enemy.

  That was the fiercest moment of the fight, for the Turks saw that without their horses they were doomed. The fought back like the savages they were, and I glimpsed Erkan laying about him like a demon. For a moment Stethatos’ section wavered, and I could hear him bellowing for his men to hold, until my own larger band of men caught up with the fight and overwhelmed the enemy. I was desperate to catch their leader, but had lost sight of him, and so I charged forward, barging into one man, knocking him over, without even seeing if he was friend or foe. Then for once I remembered something of swordsmanship and thrust at a snarling face, catching him in the neck so that the crimson blood splashed down my blade and onto my hand.

  In a matter of seconds it was over. Three Turks managed to ride away, and to my consternation one of them was Erkan. After fifty paces he reigned himself in an
d turned to survey the scene. Two of the enemy ran towards him on foot, and my men chased after them, hunting them down. But Erkan spurred towards the first Roman who was ahead of the rest, and I saw his cruel sword slash downwards once, and then twice, in a spray of blood. The others came up around him but he spurred away, free. My men chased the two Turks on foot, hunted them down and dragged them back in a rage. God knows what they would have done to them if Stethatos had not thrust them aside, and the centurion despatched the captives cleanly with two mighty blows of his sword.

  Meanwhile I had run towards Erkan who pulled fiercely at his rearing horse and looked back at us. He saw me and pointed his curved sword at me.

  “You!” he cried in Greek, and the words chilled me. “I know you! I will find you!”

  And with that he galloped after his two remaining companions.

  I stared after him for a while, then turned back to the chaotic scene of the skirmish. Some of the men were shouting exultantly, jumping up and down and running this way and that, but one of the veterans vomited on a corpse, and others sat down and held their heads in their hands.

  I was trembling with shock, but managed to order some of the calmer soldiers to round up the scattered horses, most of which stood grazing just a few yards away as if nothing had happened. Several of our men were wounded, some gravely. One sat clutching his broken arm, his teeth chattering in his white face, and I looked at him in consternation. Then I came to my senses and simply ordered one of the older men to group the wounded together and treat them as best as was possible. Sometimes leadership is about nothing more than passing on a problem to one whose failure will be less damaging.

  Overall the affray had gone better than could be expected, despite the escape of Erkan, and I took stock with growing satisfaction. The enemy had been fewer in number than our scout had estimated, twenty-six to be exact. Three had escaped, and the others had all been killed.