Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

I was dropped to my knees and pushed face down; a few half-hearted kicks fell on to my prone form, just enough to advise me to stay in that position. Prostrate in the soaked hood, I gasped in breaths of wet air made musky by the thick sacking. Incredible what small details you notice, as the end of your life is moments away.

I heard the sound of men’s voices; the details were lost in the howling elements, but there was no mistaking the tap-tap-tap that announced the construction of the crucifix. I pictured the hammer, and how it would drive the cold steel of the nails through my flesh. I knew I would scream. I screamed in my dreams, for fuck’s sake; how could I hold them back under torture?

I don’t know how long I lay there, a pathetic worm in the mud. Like the boy soldier who had bled to death on the stakes – had that truly happened this same day? – all I could think of now was my mother. I hadn’t seen her in over a decade, and even as I ached for her comfort, I couldn’t picture the details of her face. I became consumed with the need to recall her image, and angry that I couldn’t. So angry that by the time I was hauled to my feet, my self-pity had been melted away by fury.

I struggled, shrugging off the blows that landed in my stomach. My hands were untied and pulled apart. I felt the skin brush against wood, and threw my head forward, feeling it connect with another man’s skull. A curse and a savage blow was my reward.

‘Behave yourself, you cunt!’ was shouted into my ear, with more punches landing as exclamation.

I wouldn’t. Rage had taken over my body now. The human, reasoning side of my mind had departed. All that was left was animal instinct, the need to survive at any cost.

Rough cord was looped over my wrists, finally binding my thrashing limbs to the wood. Inside my hood I snarled, preparing for the bite of the nails.

Instead, the hood was pulled away.

Sometime during my confinement, darkness had come and, shadowed by flickering torches, my captors’ faces were black masks beneath steel helmets.

They stood back now, catching their breath, their victim tethered, if not subdued.

One of the men took a step closer. A trickle of blood ran from a nose many times broken. I expected violence, or anger. Instead, the executioner spoke with quiet detachment.

‘Look, mate, this is nothing personal, all right? Why don’t you stop making a scene, and just tell us what you know? Me and the boys don’t really want to be out in the rain, so the longer you keep us out here, the more pissed off and inventive we’re goin’ to get, yeah? Spill it now, and I promise we’ll knock you out before we do anything nasty. You’ll go to sleep, and there’ll be no pain. Trust me, I’ve done this a few times, and it’s not something you want to put yourself through.’

The placid tone of the words was soothing. For a second, I could almost have forgotten that he was asking me to roll over and die.

I tried to speak, but my mouth had become ash. I ran a dry tongue about my lips, and the soldier got my meaning.

‘Give the man some wine.’

I drank greedily from the offered skin, enjoying the rich flavour of the grapes.

‘It’s good,’ I told them, my voice and calm restored.

‘So you’ll talk?’

‘I’ll talk,’ I began. ‘But you may want to do this inside. It’s a long story.’

‘Nice try.’ He laughed before reaching into his pocket, and pulling out a long iron nail. He stepped forward, tracing the point of the metal along the skin of my right arm.

‘Last chance to do things the easy way.’

What did I have to lose? I was tied fast to the wooden beams, and even if I wasn’t, there were four of them, and they hadn’t spent the night getting the shit kicked out of them. My only hope was to talk. Maybe the Germans would be good enough to attack the camp and slit my throat, but until then, I would talk, and these men would hear a lot more than they expected to.

I’d give them a fucking story.

‘I’ll tell you everything,’ I offered, ‘but it really is a long story.’

The soldier smiled in the torchlight. ‘Go on.’

Instead, I held my tongue.

Maybe it was being so close to death that aroused my senses to heights beyond their usual sensitivity, but I saw movement beyond the flickering torches, and before my captors could land a blow on me for delaying my confession, a commanding voice barked from the darkness.

‘Stand down, Hadrian.’

The owner of that voice came to stand before me, and I forgot all about trying to picture my mother. No face could have been as beautiful as this: Caeonius, his hooded eyes and bulbous nose wrinkled with discomfort.

‘Get him down.’

The men knew better than to delay, and within moments my bindings had been cut.

‘I’ve cleared it with the governor,’ the prefect explained to the soldiers. ‘Put him in that tent.’

The soldiers made to pick me up, but stubborn pride compelled me to wave away the help of men who had been about to kill me. The relief of my escape made me weak, and I stalked to the tent like a newborn foal, almost collapsing on the bench within.

‘Wine?’ Caeonius asked, and I latched on to the skin like a babe to the teat.

‘What is it with you and trouble?’ he asked in some wonderment. ‘Forty years I’ve done with the eagles, and every now and then, some unlucky bugger like you will come along, and get a legion’s worth of shit on his own head.’

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ I mumbled, wiping away the wine from my chin.

‘Sorry for what? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

The prefect must have felt the question in my eyes. My need to know why I had been moments away from a horrific death.

‘It’s been a bad day, lad, and on bad days, commanders need scapegoats. Unfortunately for you, Tribune Paterculus came up with a theory that Arminius had a spy in the camp, and after a bit of head-scratching, they came up with you.’

‘But I haven’t done anything, sir,’ I protested.

‘You were out of the ordinary. That was enough for them. Like I say, they needed a scapegoat.’

His tone told me that they’d found another. I asked him who.

‘The Germans aren’t the only ones who can hide in the woods,’ Caeonius answered proudly. ‘I took out some volunteers from the Nineteenth. We ambushed a group of them, brought a few back to get answers.’

As if the prisoners had been waiting for the prefect to mention them, an agonized scream pierced the night.

‘The tribune is a real bloodthirsty bugger.’ Caeonius got to his feet and placed a fatherly hand on my shoulder. ‘Spy my arse.’ He smiled. ‘I told them that you were more dead than alive in that grove. Now that the tribune’s getting his fill, he’ll forget you ever existed, but it’s best if you don’t hang around the headquarters area. I’ll have a couple of blokes make sure you get back to your unit.’

‘Sir.’ I stopped him as he turned to leave. ‘There’s something I don’t understand.’ I hoped that I held back the desperation with which I needed to know the answer. A twitch of bushy eyebrows told me to proceed. ‘They brought me in because Arminius found me in the grove, but the governor said that the prince is no longer with us? It doesn’t make sense, sir. If Arminius is dead, then what does it matter if he did have spies? It’s embarrassing, yes, but nothing more.’

Caeonius paused before he answered. His forty years of service had taken him through countless desperate moments, and forged within him a constitution of iron. His words confirmed that the same could not be said of the army’s younger, politically appointed commanders.

‘There is no sense in fear, lad,’ he concluded, and as he turned on his heel, I struggled to stand. I had to know more. I had to.