Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

‘Why are you doing this?’ I pleaded.

‘You know why.’

‘I’m sorry!’

‘You’re not.’

I dropped to the floor, my knees sinking into the red ooze.

I heard footsteps behind me. I tried to turn, but my body was frozen. Paralysed.

‘You left me,’ the voice accused.

With slow paces, he moved into my eyeline. I saw him through blood and tears. Marcus. My oldest friend. My centurion.

‘You left me,’ Marcus rasped through his severed jaw.

I cried.

He spoke again, toying with a coil of intestine that protruded from a ripped belly. ‘You left me.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry?’ he asked, with another laugh made ugly by the wounds to his face. ‘You’re sorry?’

I had nothing to say. Blood poured from the sky. I wanted only to die.

‘Then finish it,’ Marcus finally offered, and a blade landed at my feet. ‘Kill me.’

‘I can’t,’ I stammered. ‘I can’t.’

Marcus sneered. I looked at the blade, wondering if I had the strength to turn it on myself.

Then a second voice spoke from the trees. ‘Kill him,’ it told me. ‘Kill him.’

The voice was powerful. Certain. Somehow, it filled my limbs with purpose. I stood. The blade was in my hand.

‘Kill him,’ the voice said again.

‘I can’t,’ I lied.

‘Kill him.’

Marcus smiled. His jaw flapped beneath what had been a handsome face. The face of my closest friend.

‘Kill him.’

He was still smiling as I drove the blade into his heart.

My eyes snapped open.

‘Welcome back,’ Stumps grunted.

‘I was screaming?’

‘Who isn’t?’ He shrugged, ending the matter.

As I took in deep breaths to overcome my sleep terrors, I looked about me. The section sat huddled inside the tent beside a pathetic fire, its flames as weak as our desire to leave the camp and re-enter the forest. We sat crowded for warmth, pruning hands pushed into armpits or groins. Only Titus sat alone, his hard stare fixed upon a sword that lay across his lap. The sword that he had recovered from the Germans in the forest.

With no warning, he got to his feet and left the tent.

‘Titus?’ Stumps called to the man’s wide back.

There was no response.

‘Probably gone to see Rufus,’ Moonface managed through chattering teeth.

It was the logical explanation, and yet I could not accept it. Nor could I explain why I got to my weary feet and left the sanctuary of the tent for the violence of the storm, the others watching me push my way out of the canvas as if I were a madman. Perhaps I just wanted to be awake, and away from my terrors.

Outside, I saw my section commander easily enough. Even the darkness could not hide him, his massive figure like the silhouette of a mountain against the ink-black sky. I followed at a short distance, making no great attempt at stealth – the storm was enough to hide my presence.

Following the man through the tent-lined avenues of churned mud, I soon became aware of our destination despite the darkness – the ingrained map in my brain of an army’s marching camp told me that we were headed towards the quartermaster’s.

I was not wrong.

The area about the quartermaster’s tents was a hive of activity, soldiers and slaves unloading equipment from carts so that it could be carried on the backs of men and mules. Muleteers, those slaves that tended to the animals of the baggage train, looked to their charges. I noticed how they packed the mules’ bells with straw and wrapped them in cloth, a precaution against noise that could give away the army’s pre-dawn departure. I almost smiled at their optimism. I fully expected that the Germans would know we had set foot outside the camp before our own generals did. The tribesmen had been one step ahead of Varus at every turn, and I did not foresee that tomorrow would bring a change in our fortunes.

What I did see, by torchlight, was Titus moving amongst the slaves and soldiers, his stern face questioning. I had no doubt whom he was looking for. Eventually, as a slave pointed in the direction of the latrines, it would seem that Titus had found him.

Hidden by shadow, I followed on.

The latrines were nothing more than a waist-deep slit trench dug into the dirt, the spoil deposited on the camp’s ramparts. Given the ferocity of the storm and the predicament of the army, I did not expect that many soldiers were using them, preferring the promise of at least a little shelter between tents. My hunch seemed justified as I saw only a lone figure squatting over the hole. A lone figure that Titus now approached. Downwind as I was, I caught the full stench of the trench, but the wind also trapped the big man’s accusing words, and they were full of hate.

‘You lying bastard,’ Titus snarled.

The squatting man raised himself to his full height. I could not see his birthmarks, but I recognized the voice well enough – the quartermaster.

‘Who do you think you are, interrupting a superior officer when he’s taking a shit?’ the man spat with no trace of humour.

‘You told me they were going to Britain,’ Titus snapped.

‘They were,’ the man answered after a pause.

‘Then why am I finding them killing our men!’ Titus shouted, stepping forward and shoving his superior hard in the chest.

‘Calm yourself!’ the quartermaster ordered, an edge of alarm in his tone. ‘We can talk.’

But Titus wouldn’t calm himself.

‘We can talk,’ the quartermaster almost begged.

Then, for the briefest moment, the dark storm clouds slid apart and a slither of moon showed itself against the black.

It was enough light for me to see the fear on the man’s face.

It was enough for me to see the hate on Titus’s, and the sword in his hand.

He drove it upwards into the quartermaster’s throat.

Somehow, I mastered my own desire to call out, and in that silence I heard the man’s gurgled struggle as he tried to scream. Leaving the blade embedded, Titus pushed the man backwards; the quartermaster toppled into the trench with little grace. Had I not known what he was like, I could almost pity the bastard: his final breaths would be drawn lying in the filth of an army.

Instead, I crouched in shadow, anxious that the moon might show itself again and reveal me. There, I watched as Titus took a moment to stand over the man he had killed, as if savouring the murder.

Murder .

For what?

I had to know.

Titus followed the same path back towards the century’s lines, doubtless confident that the storm could provide better cover than any meandering route. He seemed oblivious to my stalking of him, and as the questions about his murderous act raced through my mind, I grew careless in my pursuit.

And that momentary lapse was enough for Titus to kill me.

Somehow, the man had melted into the shadow of a tent, and now, as I passed, his thick arm swung out, the oak-like forearm hitting my throat and dropping me to the mud, where I lay wheezing like a landed fish.

‘You,’ the giant accused me. I looked up into his eyes, seeing nothing but cold calculation – and murder. I had underestimated him, and now I would die for it.

‘You.’ He spoke again. ‘Did you see it?’ he asked finally.

I still struggled to breathe, but I saw little point in denial. If Titus wanted to kill me, he would kill me, and so I nodded.

‘And you want to know why?’

I nodded again, expecting a blade. Instead, I got a hand.

Titus pulled me to my feet, the big man grimacing as he saw the confusion in my eyes. ‘The sword,’ was all he told me.

It was enough.

‘The weapons under the straw.’ I managed to choke, referring to the weapons I had seen smuggled out of Minden under Titus and the quartermaster’s supervision.