Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

It was Titus who found someone who had answers. She was married to a veteran of our own cohort, and her family had encamped near Rufus’s own within Minden town.

‘They were with us,’ the hard-faced woman confirmed, wiping snot from beneath a constantly running nose. ‘But they made a break for it in the forest. Reckoned they had a better chance on their own.’

‘But they were alive?’ Titus pressed.

‘They were then.’ The woman shrugged. Like the soldiers, she had seen too much, and death no longer had the impact it had done only a day before. ‘And Rufus?’ she asked.

Titus’s only answer was to walk away.

I followed, but I could not help a final look over my shoulder, where I saw the hundreds of innocents that shuddered in the cold, lambs awaiting the Germans’ slaughter. They had followed the army expecting riches and glory, but instead, they had found only death.

I do not know what Titus had planned to do had he discovered his comrade’s family, but the option had been taken from him. It seemed certain that Rufus’s loved ones would join their husband and father in his grim resting place.

‘I’ll never know what happened to my mate,’ Titus suddenly said out of nowhere, breaking me from my thoughts.

‘What?’ I asked, flustered.

‘I’ll never know. I told him to go, when we were outside the ramparts. I told him: “Go and be with them.” And then what? Did he get lost? Did the fuckers get into our camp, and snatch him? I’ll never know, Felix. All I can hope is that he was dead before they did…’ He faltered. ‘… that fucking shit to him.’

‘It’s war, Titus,’ I managed, certain that, as a veteran, he would know what I meant. In war, some things go unanswered, and good men die.

I wanted to try to say something more to the man, hardened though he was, but my words died as I saw him peering through the grey gloom. A body of men and animals moved within the marching camp’s walls.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘Cavalry,’ he grunted, eyes narrowing. ‘They’re getting ready to ride out.’

‘Why?’ I asked, puzzled, unable to guess why a large body of horsemen would be forming now that the army had fixed itself in position behind the relative safety of ditch and rampart.

‘I don’t know,’ he answered, but I could tell by the curiosity in his voice that we were going to find out.

Titus and I walked towards the body of horsemen. The troopers were busily checking the hooves of their mounts and tightening straps of both saddle and armour. Many of the beasts and their riders bore scars and bandages, the cavalry having come through the day no less punished than the foot-sloggers.

‘Brother.’ Titus hailed the nearest veteran. I saw that the green trousers beneath his tunic were stained almost black by blood.

‘My second mount of the day,’ he told us, seeing my look. ‘This one belonged to a friend of mine.’

The trooper was anxious to share his experiences, even with a stranger. I recognized this as the sign of a man who was filled with nervous anticipation.

‘You look like you’ve had a shit day,’ Titus offered, putting a hand on the horse’s soaked flank. There was comfort to be drawn from the company of beasts that held no malice. Little wonder that Chickenhead was suffering so much from the loss of his feline companion.

The cavalryman shrugged, taking in our battered and bloodied appearance. ‘No worse than yours.’

‘And now?’ Titus asked, looking about at the men who were taking long, fortifying pulls from wineskins. ‘Looks like you’re planning a party.’

The trooper snorted at the jest. ‘The governor is,’ he explained, offering us a drink from his own wineskin. We declined, knowing that every man in the army was short on rations, and not wishing to deprive a good man of his own.

‘Varus is sending us out. North, then west,’ he told us after a hearty swig. ‘We’re to link up with the legions on the Rhine, and bring reinforcements.’

The trooper’s words were hollow, holding little hope of success, and no wonder: the army had already abandoned its baggage train, and with it the majority of the campaign stores. Every hour in the marching camp would only weaken the fighting capacity of the legions through exhaustion and exposure. We could not hold out forever, and the Rhine forts were a long way away.

‘How long’s the ride?’ Titus forced himself to ask.

In answer, the man simply offered the wineskin. This time, we were both eager to take it.

‘Keep hold of it,’ the cavalryman insisted. ‘I’ll either pick up some more on the Rhine, or in the afterlife.’ He cackled at his own dark thoughts.

‘Thank you for this.’ Titus offered his hand and gave the man his name and unit. ‘Look for me when we’re back in the forts and I can repay the favour.’

‘Atticus,’ the trooper introduced himself. ‘And if you’ll excuse me, friends, it looks as if we’re leaving.’

‘Mount up!’ a voice called, and Atticus hauled himself up into the saddle.

‘Until we meet again.’ He smiled, and trotted his mare to join the formation of grim-faced horsemen.

Without speaking, I walked with Titus to the nearest stretch of rampart. We did so not only because we had both been taken by the genial trooper and wished to see him on his way, but also because we knew that the army’s hopes rode with these men. As we stood on top of the earthen bank and watched the depleted squadrons forming up, we recognized that Varus was rolling the dice in desperation, for without cavalry, even a Roman army in open battle would be hard pressed to win, as German horsemen would be able to harass our formations with impunity, picking apart the ranks until they finally broke, and the foot-sloggers could be run down in the open.

We were not the only soldiers to sense this, and soon the ramparts were thick with troops from every legion and auxiliary cohort in the army.

‘It’s the beginning, or it’s the fucking end,’ I heard a salt say behind me.

‘Good luck, lads!’ another shouted, and several others echoed the call.

I turned and looked at Titus. He held my gaze. Neither of us had the stomach to cheer.

At a command, the horses began to trot northwards, slowly gaining speed, riders anxious not to overwork the animals that had already endured so much.

I watched through the driving storm, seeing them approach the curtain of forest where they would hope to find a passage to the Rhine. All about me was silent now, the cheering long finished, the only sound the slap of the wind and rain against armour. The forms of the cavalry mounts began to blur into one mass with the distance.

The first sign of disaster came a moment later.

‘Fuck, no!’ came the curse. It was from the mouth of a young soldier, his sharp eyes having picked out something in the gloom a moment before the veterans.

But we saw it now.

Horsemen. A host of them. And not our own.

They came from behind a wall of trees, their formation thick and promising death, war cries carried by the wind. Even from so far, it was clear to see that our own battered troops were severely outnumbered. They had no chance.

No chance.

I heard the clash of arms and armour a moment later as the German cavalry enveloped the smaller number of our own exhausted horsemen, some of whom tried to forge ahead through the storm of steel, while others reined in their mounts and bolted back towards the encampment.

Within the space of a few breaths, the army’s hope of salvation had been routed.

‘The gods help them,’ a veteran prayed, but his words fell on deaf ears, and I watched blank-eyed as our cavalry were hunted down like deer by the cheering Germans.