Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

Stumps had no reply. He only nodded, and swallowed again.

‘Take us to them,’ Titus ordered.

We pushed onwards, the mud beneath our feet like churned butter stained crimson. In a short time we had reached the remainder of the section. Miraculously, they were all still alive; not all of the legion had been so fortunate.

‘Casualties are bad, Titus,’ Moonface explained once he had finished kissing Titus’s stone-like face. ‘Fucking bad. Optio Cato’s dead – took a spear in the neck. Quintus and Gnaeus are both gone. Horsehead lost an arm and bled out. Even the legion commander’s dead.’ He cursed. ‘A tribune took over, and rotated the cohorts. Fourth Cohort’s in the lead now, so we’re just following on and trying not to get killed in the harassing attacks.’

I looked towards the side of the tracks, seeing a half-dozen German bodies, and a few of our own. Stumps noticed.

‘They put a big effort in when we broke camp, but they’ve slackened off since. If only the fucking weather would do the same.’

It was only now that I was reunited with my comrades that I became aware once again of the howling wind and driving rain, a sensation that had been lost to me as I concentrated on finding the column and avoiding German steel.

Looking ahead at what remained of the century, I saw the distinctive shorn crest of Pavo’s helmet. The centurion yet lived.

‘He hasn’t stopped smiling since the legate was gutted,’ Stumps commented.

I looked over the faces of the section, finding no smiles there, only the worn-out stares of soldiers who had already been forced to witness and endure more than any man should. In such circumstances, I expected the boy soldiers to suffer the most, but as my eyes settled on Chickenhead’s pinched face, I saw a soul twisted with torment. In the hours since I had last seen the soldier, he had aged by a hundred years.

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

‘The kitten.’ Stumps shrugged beneath his armour. ‘It’s really gone downhill this morning, and Chicken’s not taking it well. I don’t think Lupus is goin’ to make it out of this forest.’

I couldn’t meet the man’s eye, and made no reply – because I was certain that none of us would.

We trudged on in silence broken only by mumbled prayers and the absent-minded muttering of curses. Occasionally slingshot or spear would be spat forth from the forest. Sometimes a Roman voice would cry out in agony and fear, often pleading for a mother or loved one. As we marched on, I saw these victims beside the tracks, their pathetic moans hardening some men’s souls and breaking others.

‘For the gods’ sake, don’t leave me!’ an auxiliary trooper begged in his thick Latin. ‘Don’t leave me!’

What choice did we have? We left him.

We left him, and so many others.

‘Keep your fucking eyes front,’ Titus ordered, desperate to hold his section together. ‘If their mates can’t do it for them, then it’s not down to us.’

Slowly but surely, the idea of a unified army was being watered down so that the soldiers’ sole concern was the survival of their closest friends, and themselves.

‘Kill me! Kill me!’ a maimed soldier begged.

‘Kill yourself!’ Stumps screamed, at breaking point.

The march through the abandoned wounded proved too much for many. Veteran and boy soldier alike broke in the face of the dying and the constant threat from the forest, charging into the trees with mad cries of vengeance. None were seen again, but some were heard as their screams echoed through the branches.

‘This is a fucking nightmare,’ Moonface choked.

‘You wake up from a nightmare.’ Stumps hit his friend hard across the shoulders, and then across the steel of his helmet. ‘This is a test! Fucking get a grip, you cunt!’ he hissed into the face of his comrade, slapping him hard to drive home the point.

The blows worked, and Moonface rallied. Then he steadied himself by cursing beneath his breath, promising to bring revenge and murder to every home in Germany. He vowed that he would torture the men, rape the women and enslave the children. Such heated bile brought him some consolation from the misery around him. It even galvanized the others. I began to dare hope that, in this mass of misery, perhaps our own section had the fortitude to survive with our minds intact.

But it wasn’t to be. Hope for Chickenhead’s sanity fled with Lupus the kitten’s final breath, the tiny creature losing its battle against the elements as we floundered in the mud.

‘No!’ the veteran wailed, as if he held his own child. ‘No! Don’t! Don’t!’ He dropped to his knees on the filthy track, his ugly face pressed into the soaked fur of the tiny body, now rigid, beyond any hope of salvation.

‘Chicken…’ Stumps tried, reaching out.

‘Get away from me!’ his comrade screamed as he drew his sword and threatened his friends. ‘I want to die!’ he pleaded, and then made to break for the forest and death on the German spears.

It was the quick action of Stumps and Moonface that stopped him, their shields raised to block his path. They risked death in doing so, for their friend was so consumed by grief that he resembled the animalistic Titus I had seen spreading murder.

‘I want to die!’ Chickenhead called into the trees. ‘I want to die.’ He dropped his sword into the mud, tears cascading across his pockmarked cheeks.

This was not the time to beat and threaten. Not knowing what else to do, I stepped forward and embraced the man.

‘Just leave me,’ the veteran sobbed into the armour of my shoulder. He had spent twenty years killing and losing comrades on Rome’s behalf, but the death of his tiny companion was one blow too many for the man’s fragile mind.

I looked at Titus, and saw nothing on his face. His eyes were empty and dark. When he moved, I expected a blow that would try to restore the veteran to his senses. Instead, Titus hoisted the old soldier on to his shoulder as if he were a sack of grain. Chickenhead made no motion to fight it, as limp as a young child carried by an impatient father.

I looked at them with a sense of disbelief. While other soldiers lay dying in the mud, guts in their hands and pleading for mercy, a man I knew to be a murderer carried a heartbroken veteran and his dead pet towards sanctuary.

Sanctuary , for word now spread that there was a clearing up ahead.

At least for a moment, we were leaving the forest.

Wind and rain pelted my face. My throat was dry, my stomach empty. There was no muscle in my body that didn’t ache with every shuffled step. No bone that was not bruised to the marrow.

And yet, leaving the trees, I felt as if the weight of the world were lifted from my shoulders.

Open ground. Roman battle lines. Here lay sanctuary in our formations, and victory – if only the Germans would oblige us with combat.

Of course, I did not expect that they would, but at least for a moment we did not need to fear the next step, or shadow.

And a moment was all it would be for, scanning the horizon, the smudge of unbreaking trees was visible through the grey gloom.

‘We’re not out of the forest,’ Stumps groaned. ‘When does the fucking thing end? Do we even know if it ends?’

No one had an answer for him. Instead, Pavo’s clipped tones called through the winds. ‘Century! Move from column to line!’

Despite our fatigue, hours of drill practice ensured that we quickly changed formation, our depleted century forming a unit that was eleven men across and four deep. I found myself in the front rank, which allowed me to lean forward and see the wings of the army begin to stretch out in both directions as the troops cleared the nightmare of the forest.