Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

‘They were supposed to go to Britain,’ he confirmed. By his tone, it was clear that they hadn’t.

‘You found them in the forest.’

‘I found them in the forest.’ His voice was bitter. ‘Roman blades in German hands.’

‘Doesn’t mean that they were yours,’ I offered, rubbing at my burning throat.

‘They were mine.’ Titus held up a scarred fist. ‘There was only one supplier working out of Minden, you understand? I made sure of that.’

‘And now he’s dead.’ As I spoke I thought of the quartermaster’s body in the shit-filled trench.

‘Quicker end than the cunt deserved,’ Titus grunted as the man’s eulogy.

I said nothing. The rain beat against our faces as we held each other’s stares.

‘So what now?’ I asked. As witness to Titus’s murder of a superior officer, I still held little hope that I would be leaving the filthy avenue alive.

The killer snorted. ‘Rufus has gone to his family. He won’t be coming back. Chickenhead’s a good soldier, but this storm is turning him to rust. The others? They’re sheep.’ Titus spoke harshly, his eyes hard.

‘So you won’t kill me?’ I asked, almost jumping in surprise as the big man bellowed out a bark of laughter.

‘You’re as guilty as me, Felix .’ He smirked. ‘ I don’t know of what, exactly, but you have blood on your hands. I’d bet my life on it.’

I said nothing, and Titus smiled again, enjoying his sport and, perhaps, seeing life with the clarity that can only come when one is so near to death.

‘I don’t promise you’ll live through today,’ he told me, ‘but it won’t be my blade that guts you.’

I imagined that was as heartfelt a truce as I could ever get from this man, and so I put out my hand. I had nothing to gain from denying our transgressions. ‘To secrets, then.’

Titus paused, his thick lips twisted in amusement. ‘To secrets.’ He took my hand and stared deep into my dead eyes. ‘And to killers,’ he finished, walking away into the darkness.

I watched him go. He knew who I was. Despite our differences, we were the two most alike in the section.

Then such thoughts were cut away as I was suddenly forced to bend at the waist. Perhaps it was being a moment from my imagined death that made me vomit, or perhaps it was the irony. Either way, as I wiped the acidic bile with the back of my hand, I echoed Titus’s salutation in my head.

To killers , he had said.

To killers.

I followed Titus into the section’s tent.

‘We thought you’d gone to get Rufus,’ Stumps mumbled, relieved to see his leader return.

Titus made no reply. Instead, he cast his eyes over the section’s soldiers, seeing the five men clustered about the weak flames, their stares as empty as the pathetic brazier. In them, I saw the look of men who were on the edge of surrender. Titus saw it too, and acted.

‘Look at me,’ he ordered.

They did, heads turning slowly on aching shoulders. At Titus’s back, I took in the sight of them, and one fact was painfully clear: these were not the men who had marched from Minden.

Chickenhead’s pinched face was gaunt and grey. He had wrapped Lupus the kitten in a scarf, and held him to his chest as if the feline were a precious jewel. Moonface and Stumps, young veterans in the prime of their years, had the hollow-eyed and desperate look of criminals condemned to the arena. Micon and Cnaeus, mere boys, seemed to have aged a decade in a day, Cnaeus’s temples having developed a shock of white like a rabbit’s tail.

Yes, this was a section on the edge of breaking. In times of crisis, men show themselves to be leaders or followers, wolves or sheep.

Our own wolf stepped forward. He pulled away his helmet, dropping it to the ground. ‘What happened tonight, at the hospital,’ Titus began, looking at each of the shivering men in the eye, ‘that’s not going to be us. That will never be us.’

Titus paused with his next words still in his mouth, and I wondered if the gnarled veteran was about to fill his comrades with false promises of invincibility, everlasting life and glory.

He was not.

‘Our section will never leave a wounded man behind. If any of us are too fucked to go on, then…’ Now he did falter, his thick jaw grinding like a millstone. ‘… then what needs to be done will be done.’

His words finished, I watched as Titus seemed to swallow what looked like a rock in his throat. The sorry figures before him stared back, their already assaulted minds struggling to accept the thought of dying at the hands of their friends. It was not a concept they were eager to face, but Titus gave them no choice.

‘Do you all agree?’ Titus pushed them, volume rising. ‘Well? Fucking talk!’ he finally snapped, when no answer was forthcoming.

It was Chickenhead who was the first to break his silence, his head bobbing as he shrugged and grimaced. ‘What choice is there? We’ve all seen what the goat-fuckers do for sport.’ At his chest, Lupus made a mewling sound, and the veteran turned his attention back sharply to his beloved creature.

It was enough of an agreement for Titus, and he cast his eyes about for further confirmation.

‘I agree,’ Moonface managed on his second attempt.

‘Stumps?’ Titus pressed.

‘I’m going to live forever,’ the soldier forced out, using every ounce of his spirit to muster a smile. No one laughed, but Titus’s lip twitched in affection at the effort. ‘But if I don’t,’ Stumps continued, ‘then please, do what you must. Please.’

‘Boys?’ Titus asked, turning his attention to the section’s youngest soldiers. ‘It’s time to man up. Wipe the fucking snot from your faces, and give me an answer.’

‘I agree?’ Micon said, as if unsure he was being given a choice, his tone as flat as ever.

‘I agree,’ Cnaeus stuttered a second later.

Titus rubbed a huge hand across his stone face. ‘And I expect the same treatment from any one of you, if I get fucked up. No one left behind. Now get off your fucking arses and prepare to move,’ he ordered, and the five exhausted forms roused themselves from the floor, so bone-weary that even the usual litany of curses was absent.

As Titus turned from them, he saw me on his shoulder and met my look. ‘What?’ he asked, eyes narrowing.

‘You didn’t ask me,’ I told him, wondering why. Maybe, even after all we had been through, I was still not a part of this section.

The man’s face twisted into a savage smile as he gave me my answer. ‘I’ve got a feeling you’ll outlive us all, lucky one,’ he said, brushing by me to the tent’s flap and calling over his shoulder in a voice of iron: ‘Come on, boys. Dawn’s coming.’

I turned my eyes from him to the other members of the section, seeing the gaunt-faced men hauling armour over their heads and down on to tired shoulders. I was sure that my own appearance was no better – worse, even – than theirs, and yet in this pitiful state we had to face the violence of nature and of our enemies, for it was time to break camp.

It was time to go back into the forest.

We formed up in the darkness, our depleted century standing shivering in three files. Despite the burden of shield and equipment, we pressed ourselves together tightly for warmth and reassurance in the face of the unknown.

I found myself on the right flank of the century, which gave me the uncomfortable choice of wielding my sword in my left hand – a pointless task against anyone but the most poorly trained enemy – or leaving my right side open to the forest and its dangers. To the left of me was young Cnaeus, Titus having ensured that the youngest and greenest soldiers were packed into the formation’s centre, encased by a solid shell of veterans.