Eagles at War

XI

A hundred paces, Tullus counted. A hundred and five. A hundred and ten, and the old injury in his left calf began to register its unhappiness. He ignored the darts of pain it sent up his leg, and the slight tightness in his chest. By the time he’d counted to a hundred and thirty, the warriors by the gate had begun to charge. They came in a great, disorganised mob, chanting and waving their spears. The distance between the two groups narrowed fast. Tullus kept up his fierce pace; so did his men.

At a hundred and sixty, however, he was forced to admit that the gate was too far away. He could not reach it before the warriors got to them. Shit, Tullus thought. Shit. The legionaries were keeping pace, and he knew in his gut that they, much younger than he, could maintain this speed right to the end. But he couldn’t. The pain from his left calf was agonising, and there was a burning sensation filling his lungs. He would have to live with the consequences of covering less ground. Or, more likely, die with them.

‘Slow down,’ Tullus croaked. He dragged in a breath, let it out, took another, spat a great string of phlegm on the ground. He had lost count, but it didn’t matter. The Usipetes were fifty paces away, and closing fast. They were spreading out as they came, in a widening circle that would soon envelop Tullus’ small band. The gate was at least eighty paces beyond them. It might as well have been in Judaea, he thought. If Tubero hadn’t been out for his blood, this was the moment to send his troops surging to the attack, but Tullus still couldn’t hear anything from the other side of the palisade. They were on their own.

‘HALT!’

Tullus took a look to his left. Four legionaries. Over his left shoulder, three ranks were resuming their shape. Between the helmets and red faces, he made out Fenestela, still in position. Gods, but he was proud of them. Many troops would have refused to charge towards certain death. His had done it, and in good order. ‘We can still make the damn gate,’ he cried. ‘Form square! Five men wide, four deep, two within. Fenestela, take the opposite corner to me.’ He let his men decide who would face the enemy first, and who would act as the reserve. Used to assuming this shape in training, they’d obeyed in a few heartbeats. ‘Forward. To the gate, at a walk,’ he shouted. ‘Now!’

Although his soldiers did not have javelins, Tullus saw that most of the warriors were in the same boat. The surprise attack had meant that most had grabbed only one spear when they woke, rather than the two or three per man that was normal. The missile storm that presaged face-to-face combat would be far lighter, and they would lose fewer shields to lodged spears. At thirty paces, perfect range, it came. ‘Shields up!’ he bellowed. ‘Walk!’

Thunk. Thunk. Tullus felt a surge of relief. His shield hadn’t been hit.

Thunk. A gurgling cry of pain from behind him, a dead weight hitting him in the back.

One down, thought Tullus. ‘Keep walking,’ he ordered.

Again his soldiers retained their discipline. They covered another ten paces, leaving behind the body of the legionary who’d been struck in the neck by a spear. Twenty-one of them, with twenty shields. A second volley from much closer saw those numbers reduced to twenty, and eighteen. They were surrounded now, yelling tribesmen edging towards them over the flat ground, spears ready to thrust. Tullus’ heart, which had slowed after their run, began hammering off the inside of his ribs again. ‘Halt! Close order!’

He shifted position, withdrawing a step and half turning to the right, so that the corner of the square became rounded, and gave his right side more protection than if he stayed facing forward. Feeling a spreading numbness in his sword hand, he relaxed his grip on the weapon’s hilt. Stay calm, he thought. Stay focused. ‘You know how to play this, brothers. Keep tight. Watch for their spears. Take ’em in the belly when you can.’

The nearest warriors were ten steps away. Three were bearing down on Tullus: a nervous-looking youth not old enough to shave; a thin, blackbearded man so similar in appearance to the boy that he had to be his father; and a shaggy-haired brute who looked to have the brains of a senile mongrel. Tullus could have taken the first two together, and the big one on his own, but all three was a different matter. Acid filled the back of his throat.

Perhaps wanting to prove his courage, the youth attacked first, driving his spear overhand at Tullus’ face.

‘Spear!’ Tullus roared, ducking down to peer around the side of his shield, and praying that the soldier behind heard his warning. The weapon hissed overhead, the youth’s body following with the effort of his thrust. It was a simple matter for Tullus to stab him through the abdomen. Not too deep, just enough to slice his opponent’s guts to ribbons, and out again. Down went the youth, bleeding everywhere, bawling like a kicked child. His spear dropped from nerveless fingers, and Tullus eyed Blackbeard with contempt. ‘Your son’s going to die screaming at your feet! How do you like that?’ he cried in German.

Enraged, Blackbeard shoved forward, past the brute. He drove his hexagonal shield at Tullus’ scutum while trying to stab him with his spear. It was a crude move, one Tullus had seen before. He outweighed Blackbeard by some margin, so he bent his knees and braced himself behind his shield. The impact didn’t push him backward, but he hadn’t expected Blackbeard’s spear blade to snag in the mount for his horsehair crest. Tullus’ head was wrenched backwards. Waves of agony shot through his neck. His experience, and the bitter knowledge that he would die if he let go of his shield grip, kept his arm high.

Blackbeard cursed and tugged, tugged and cursed, pulling Tullus’ head to and fro and sending stabs of intense pain down into his chest. Without warning, the spear blade came free. Blackbeard cried out in triumph and drew back his arm to strike again. Sucking in a breath, Tullus somehow found the strength to slide his left foot forward a step and launch a counter-punch with his scutum. Blackbeard stumbled. With a quick lunge, Tullus stabbed him in the foot. He withdrew to the square, leaving his opponent to stagger away, bleeding and shouting.

Tullus prepared to face the brute, but the warrior had taken several steps backwards. So too had the men to either side of him. Tullus’ gaze shot left to right, and back again, over his shoulder. There were wounded, dead and dying Usipetes all around the square. The remainder were pulling back, out of sword range. They weren’t beaten: this was the tribesmen’s way. Attack, retreat. Attack, retreat. It was an opportunity for his men to advance.

‘Towards the gate, at the walk. NOW!’

Leaving four legionaries on the ground – Tullus didn’t check to see if they were dead or alive – they tramped on. Like a shoal of fish threatened by a predator, the nearest tribesmen retreated, without breaking formation. A number of them broke into song again, chanting the barritus, the sonorous war chant for which all Germans were famed. Damn them, but they’re brave, thought Tullus. Not one of them has armour, yet they’ll still fight us. ‘Keep moving!’

Ten paces. Fifteen. Twenty. The gate was close enough to see the giant locking bar that had been dropped into place behind the two doors. It would take at least six men to shift the damn thing. Six men who wouldn’t be able to fight as they lifted it. What did it matter? thought Tullus as the Usipetes’ leader, a broad-shouldered chieftain in a red-patterned cloak, bellowed orders and his warriors surged forward once more. We’ll never get there. ‘For Rome, brothers! FOR ROME!’

‘ROME!’

The roar slowed their enemies a little, but no more than that. Scenting victory, for they yet outnumbered the legionaries by at least three to one, they darted forward, long spears at the ready. The shaggy-haired brute came for Tullus again, leering, uttering dire threats in his own language. His arms were thick as decent-sized tree branches and Tullus’ mouth felt even drier. One decent spear thrust anywhere – to his shield, or his body – and he’d be finished. ‘Did your mother fuck a bear?’ he cried in German, hoping he’d used the right words. ‘Or were both your parents animals?’

The brute’s face twisted with rage and he charged straight at Tullus, who leaned forward into his shield, left leg bent at the knee. Head below his shield rim, glancing around the side of it, he stabbed his opponent a heartbeat before they collided. There was a grunt of pain – Tullus shoved his blade forward with all his might – but the impact with the brute was still sufficient to send him stumbling backwards. He felt his enemy collapsing on top of him rather than saw it, fell down on to his arse and then his back. The dead weight pressing him into the earth prevented Tullus from moving much, other than his right arm. He had his sword yet, so he stabbed the brute again for good measure. Warm fluid sprayed over his hand. There was a groan and Tullus repeated the action over and over, until his fingers could no longer grip the ivory hilt. Unsure if the brute was dead, but prevented from rising by the body on his shield, he sagged back on to the earth and closed his eyes. His ears filled with the noise of battle: men’s shouts, heavy thunks as shields met shields, cries of pain.

The dice in his mind’s eye spun slower and slower, and came to a stop.

‘I think the centurion’s still alive,’ a voice shouted.

To his surprise, Tullus felt the brute being rolled away. Fenestela’s ugly mug peered down at him. ‘Having a rest, sir?’

Tullus could not think of a comeback. ‘I was.’

‘Are you hurt, sir?’

‘Winded, that’s all.’ Tullus let the optio pull him to his feet, realising that the Usipetes had retreated again. There were nine legionaries who could fight, and Fenestela, and he. It wasn’t enough. There was still no noise of an assault on the palisade. Despite their heavy casualties, more than two score warriors surrounded them, and the gate was thirty paces away.

Fenestela’s face was bitter as he jerked his head at it. ‘So near, and yet so far, eh?’

A devilment, a madness born of desperation, took flame in Tullus’ heart. ‘I say we can reach it. They won’t stand before a wedge, if we do it fast.’

Fenestela’s expression said that he didn’t believe Tullus’ words any more than Tullus did himself, but instead of arguing, he bared his teeth. ‘What do you say, brothers? Shall we show these savages how real soldiers can fight?’

Tullus’ heart filled as the legionaries rumbled their agreement. They also knew that forming the wedge was nothing more than choosing a way to die. ‘You’re good lads,’ he said. ‘Form up!’

Tullus was bone-weary, but he took position at the point of the wedge. It was the most dangerous position, and he was the centurion.

Tullus didn’t hear the shout from the top of the palisade. His soldiers had come in behind him. Fenestela was at his right shoulder, hurling insults at the Usipetes. A gap-toothed legionary who’d been in his century for ten years was at his left, muttering under his breath what he was going to do to the next warrior who came within reach of his blade. Without looking, Tullus knew that the rest were also there, a mass of sweaty, tired, blood-spattered figures who would follow him until they were dead. ‘Now!’ he shouted, and broke into a shambling run.

He fixed his gaze on a warrior with long braids of hair and an oval, blue-painted shield. Kill him first and drive on, he thought. Don’t think about anything else.

At last Tullus registered the shouting. Or more, he noted the alarm in the voices. His pace slowed a fraction; his eyes flickered up to the walkway over the gate, where two Usipetes were screaming and pointing. Tullus couldn’t make out their words, but he felt a flare of hope. When he saw a figure clambering over the rampart – one of Arminius’ tribesmen – and then another, his heart soared. He had no idea why the auxiliaries rather than legionaries were attacking, but he didn’t care. ‘Halt!’

His soldiers obeyed, but he could sense their confusion. ‘Why, sir?’ Fenestela’s breath was hot in Tullus’ ear.

Tullus pointed with his sword. Dismayed cries rose from the Usipetes by the gate as they too noticed the Cheruscans swarming over the top of the palisade. Five, eight, a dozen. There were warriors appearing all along the rampart. Confused – how were so many of them getting up? – Tullus laughed as he realised. The clever bastards were scrambling up from their horses’ backs. He studied the faces of the Usipetes who blocked their path, and let the panic seep in for a few more heartbeats, let them see the Cheruscans dispatching their sentries and leaping down into the compound. ‘Charge now, and they’ll break,’ he said.

‘Give us the word, sir,’ Fenestela replied.

Tullus shouted the order, and they moved forward. To his delight, the warriors melted away like morning mist before the sun. Three of the bravest stood their ground, backs to the gate, but Tullus and his reenergised soldiers cut them down in a frenzy of blows. Setting down shields and sheathing blades, they heaved and wrenched at the great, square length of timber that barred the entrance. Tullus could hear sword hilts being hammered on the planking from the outside. Fortuna hadn’t given up on him just yet, he thought as they lifted the locking bar to one side and pulled wide the doors. He was almost knocked over by the tide of Cheruscans who came barrelling in. Content that they would finish off the Usipetes, Tullus leaned against the wall and closed his eyes as they charged past. Gods, but he was tired.

‘You’re still alive then.’

Tullus looked up at the sound of Arminius’ voice. ‘Just. I wouldn’t be if it hadn’t been for your men.’ It was odd to feel grateful towards a man he wasn’t sure he trusted, but there it was.

Arminius dipped his chin in recognition. ‘I was surprised he gave you so few men, but it was even odder how he watched and listened like a fox outside a coop full of hens as you began your attack. I’m not sure when he would have sent his men forward.’

A dull anger pulsed behind Tullus’ eyeballs. The whoreson Tubero had hoped he would die.

‘Sir!’ Fenestela appeared by Tullus’ side. ‘The Cheruscans are killing all of the Usipetes, sir.’ He glanced at Arminius, who gave a casual shrug and said:

‘Their blood’s up, like yours.’

Tullus rubbed a hand across eyes that had gone gritty and painful. Did Arminius want every warrior dead? In that weary moment, he didn’t care. ‘The pieces of shit were for carving us new arseholes, Fenestela, in case you’d forgotten.’

‘Aye, screw them,’ said Fenestela. ‘It doesn’t really matter, does it?’

‘No,’ said Tullus, glad to be alive. ‘It doesn’t.’

Neither man saw the flicker of satisfaction in Arminius’ eyes.

When the patrol got back to Vetera, Tullus’ soldiers were dismissed to their barracks. After they’d dumped their kit, many of the tired legionaries headed straight for the baths. Afer and the rest of the contubernium decided to do the same, but Piso hung back. ‘I want to check on Vitellius, see that he’s settling into the hospital.’

‘It was only a flesh wound that he took,’ said one of his comrades. ‘Visit him later, after you’ve had a good soak.’

‘I’ll go and see him now,’ demurred Piso.

‘Tell him to get his arse back here,’ Afer threw in. ‘I’m already missing his sarcasm.’

‘I’ll tell him.’ Piso felt bad for Vitellius, who had not long recovered from the beating inflicted by Aius and his friends, and then been selected by Tullus to enter the stockade as part of the surprise attack ordered by Tubero. Piso felt a little guilty too, that Vitellius might not have been injured if he’d been fighting fit, so he stopped at the quartermaster’s long enough to buy some wine. It was illegal for army wine to be sold privately, but it could always be had if a man was prepared to pay. Armed with a covered jug of what was reputed to be some of Sicily’s finest, he made straight for the valetudinarium.

The camp hospital was a large, square building facing on to the via principalis and adjacent to the northern gate. It was typical of valetudinaria, consisting of a large entrance hall and two concentric sets of rooms set around a central courtyard, with a circulating corridor that ran between them. The passageway enabled staff and patients alike to move about without being exposed to the weather. Survival rates within for many diseases and ailments were good, but it wasn’t a place men liked to visit unless they had to. Piso had been twice for minor problems: conjunctivitis the first time, and a sprained wrist the next. He’d never before had occasion to visit a comrade, in particular one who had been injured in combat.

The unmistakeable tang of acetum, the disinfectant used by surgeons, hit his nostrils as he stepped inside the doorway. Piso quite liked it. The reception area was jammed with the casualties from the patrol. Groans rose from some of the worst cases, while others lay as if already dead. Poor bastards, thought Piso. Only the soldiers with minor injuries seemed pleased to have reached the place. Stretchers had been laid out in preparation, ready to carry the men within; the wounded were being assessed by teams of surgeons and orderlies. He cast his gaze over the room, but couldn’t see Vitellius anywhere. He watched, fascinated, as a surgeon he recognised stopped by a legionary with a thick bandage wrapped around one thigh. ‘You were with the patrol, soldier?’ asked the surgeon.

‘Aye, sir.’

‘What happened to you?’

‘A German spear, sir. I got knocked over by a warrior, and he ripped my shield to one side. I stuck him as he did. Even though he was dying, the dog still managed to stab me.’ The legionary winced as the surgeon probed at the bandage. ‘It bled like a bastard – sorry, sir – really badly. I was lucky that a comrade whipped a strip of leather around my leg, and tightened it with a piece of wood.’

‘What colour was the blood?’

‘Bright red, sir. It was pumping out.’

The surgeon’s face grew wary. ‘The artery must have been severed. When did the leather come off?’

‘Our medical orderly undid it after the fighting had ended, sir, to see if the bleeding started again. It did, damn quick, so he reapplied it. Every hour or so, he let the pressure off, to keep the leg from going dead, he said. It kept bleeding until that evening, but it’s been all right since.’

‘Any pain?’ The legionary pulled a face, and the surgeon rephrased his question, peering beneath the edges of the bandage, top and bottom. ‘Does it throb, like an infected finger might?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Good. There’s no discoloration of the skin that I can see. Best to leave the bandage on until tomorrow.’ The surgeon glanced at the orderly. ‘Have him carried to one of the minor-wounds wards. He’s to have poppy juice if he wishes, five drops, twice daily. Put him on the examinations list for the morning.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The surgeon moved on to the next case, and Piso clutched at the orderly’s arm as he passed. ‘A comrade of mine was taken here just now.’

‘Half the world has a mate in here,’ retorted the orderly, but he paused. ‘What kind of injury had he?’

‘A flesh wound, in the forearm.’

‘He’s lucky then. If you can’t spy him, wait until the stretcher-bearers pick up this man here, and follow them.’ He indicated the soldier whom the surgeon had just examined. ‘There are two wards for minor wounds. Like as not, you’ll find him in one of those.’

‘My thanks.’ When the stretcher-bearers arrived, Piso trailed his way after, along the hospital’s central corridor, down the building’s long side and around to the short side. Offices, storerooms and bedrooms for the medical staff lined the first section of the passageway, and were followed by two operating theatres, and wards for the most severe cases. If the cries of pain and the surgeon’s terse instructions to ‘Give him more poppy juice!’ and ‘Pass me the damn clamp, quickly!’ were anything to go by, dramatic, risky surgery was under way. His nostrils full of the smell of blood and piss, and images of the dead at the settlement, Piso didn’t linger.

The legionary with the leg wound was carried into the first minor-wounds ward, so Piso stuck his head into the second, a small dark chamber almost identical to a barrack room for eight men. All the bunks were occupied, but there was no sign of Vitellius, so he returned to the first chamber. He found his friend watching with a scowl as the leg-wound soldier was shifted on to a lower bunk – which, from the kit that lay on the floor beside it, looked to have been Vitellius’ until that moment.

‘There you are,’ said Piso, grinning.

‘I’d just got comfortable,’ replied Vitellius in a sour tone. ‘Trust me to choose the bed that someone else needs more than I do.’

‘You might have a bad arm,’ butted in one of the stretcher-bearers, ‘but this man has a wound that could start bleeding at any time. Do you want him exsanguinating over you from the top berth?’

‘Of course not,’ snapped Vitellius.

‘Gratitude, brother,’ said the leg-wound soldier, looking a little embarrassed.

Vitellius brushed it off with a wave of his good hand. He eyed Piso. ‘Come to check up on me?’

‘Aye, to see how you were.’ He raised the wine. ‘And to bring you this.’

Vitellius’ face cheered. ‘You’re a true comrade. We’ll have a drop right now.’

Piso scouted around for a cup, but could see none. He took a slug, and made a face. ‘Finest Sicilian, it is not. Never mind.’ He passed it to Vitellius, who poured a long draught down his neck without swallowing. ‘How’s the wound?’ asked Piso.

Vitellius lifted his injured right arm, which had a fresh linen bandage on it. ‘The surgeon said it must have been a damn sharp blade. Went straight in, straight out. It seems clean enough. He sluiced it with acetum twice – gods, but that stung like a bastard – and had it dressed. Two or three days, I’ll be here, he reckons, long enough to make sure it stays uncontaminated. After that, I can come back every few days to have it dressed. Not too bad, I guess.’

‘Aye, you were lucky.’ Piso thanked the gods again that he had not been part of the attack.

‘Where are the rest?’

‘In the baths.’

‘I could have guessed,’ said Vitellius, scowling. ‘I’m not to go there until my wound has healed, the surgeon says.’

‘A wise idea. Sweat, dirt, blood and massage oil aren’t the things to get in to a cut,’ Piso agreed, remembering a surgeon giving his father similar advice.

‘That’s not taking into account the bastards who piss in the baths!’ added the leg-wound soldier. ‘There’s always one of those.’

‘I can remember the day one of my tent mates shat in the caldarium,’ chipped in a legionary from another bunk. ‘Said he’d eaten some meat that had turned, but that didn’t stop us giving him a good kicking.’

Everyone laughed.

‘There’s quite a party air in here,’ boomed Tubero, sweeping in, a staff officer and a servant on his heels.

‘Sir!’ Everyone who could stand shot to attention. The leg-wound soldier and another saluted from their beds. ‘Sorry, sir, it’s difficult to get up,’ said one.

‘At ease, at ease. Injured men are allowed some leeway.’ Despite Tubero’s jocular manner, no one forgot his rank. They watched him with nervous eyes and fixed smiles as he paced to and fro, glancing at them. ‘Were any of you in the patrol that wiped out the Usipetes?’

It wasn’t surprising that a tribune didn’t recognise the men he’d just commanded, thought Piso, but it rankled just the same.

‘I was, sir,’ said Vitellius.

‘Me too, sir,’ added the leg-wound legionary.

‘I was there as well, sir,’ said Piso as Tubero’s eyes fell on him and his jug of wine.

‘You’ve come with refreshment for your comrades, I see. I like that.’ Tubero held out his hand, and the servant passed over a small amphora. ‘This fine vintage, from my own supplies, is also for you brave men wounded in the empire’s service. You fought well at the settlement. Rome is proud of you.’

A chorus of ‘Thank you, sir’ echoed from every corner of the room as Vitellius accepted the gift.

‘I’ll expect you all back on duty soon. There’s to be no shirking!’ said Tubero. With that, he was gone.

Pompous little prick, thought Piso. He could see the same opinion mirrored in Vitellius’ eyes, but neither of them knew the others well enough to risk saying so out loud.

‘He’s the one who went wild on that mission to Aliso, isn’t he?’ asked a middle-aged soldier with a bandaged head.

Piso and Vitellius exchanged another look. ‘He is,’ said Piso.

‘I heard that if it hadn’t been for him, the Usipetes would never have raided over the river. He and his officers killed four warriors for no reason, or so they say.’

Piso threw caution to the wind. ‘That’s about right.’

‘Aye,’ muttered Vitellius.

‘So what was he like on the patrol you’ve just come back from?’ asked Bandage Head.

Piso shifted beneath the weight of seven men’s gaze. ‘A little reckless, perhaps.’

‘Bollocks to that. He’s a glory-hunter, pure and simple,’ said Vitellius. ‘He threw us into an ill-prepared attack against a fortified position. Plenty of men died before he realised his mistake, or more like before our centurion intervened and told him how to do it better. Even then, he didn’t listen. Twenty of us got sent to take the enemy in the rear, when it should have been a half-century or more. We two’ – he indicated the leg-wound soldier – ‘and another seven of our comrades are lucky to be here.’

Men pulled faces, and asked the gods that they never had to serve under Tubero.

Vitellius read Piso’s wariness. ‘I was only speaking the truth. Besides, we’re all comrades here. Now, are you just going to stand there holding that jug, or pour some for our friends?’

Telling himself that there was no need to be concerned about gossiping, Piso offered the wine around.

‘What about the good stuff?’ asked Bandage Head with a sly grin.

Vitellius made an obscene gesture at him. ‘You heard the tribune. That’s just for us three, who risked our lives for Rome.’