Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

A lump of ice stuck in my throat.

‘You spoke well, lad.’ Titus smiled, embracing Micon as if he were his son. Metella followed suit, and soon, Micon had been pulled tight by every member of the assembly.

‘What now?’ Stumps asked, wiping away snot with the back his hand.

Titus was ready with his answer. ‘Let’s get drunk.’

We did.

We drank. We laughed. We remembered. Eventually, however, the stories had to come to an end. There was time for a few snatched hours of sleep, before sentry duty in the dead of night.

All was dark and silent beyond the wall. The cold wind brushed against my skin, flushed from wine, and I welcomed it. I pictured how I would fall gratefully into my bed once our watch was over, and sleep until I was forcefully pulled out of it. Then, as the night lifted and dawn came to the fort, I panicked for a moment that I had committed the greatest sin in the legions, and fallen asleep at my post, for surely what I saw in front of me was a dream?

Because the fields were empty.

The enemy was gone.

It was almost three days before we got our first indication of what had happened to the enemy who had vanished from sight; Centurion H called for his optio and his section commanders to join him in his quarters, a series of rooms situated on the end of the barrack block. One acted as the centurion’s office, and it was here that he gave his briefing.

‘Anyone notice that Centurion Malchus has been missing?’ H asked, and men shook their heads. The cohort commander could be counted on to be found where fighting was thickest, but during the monotonous days of siege he was often out of sight.

‘He’s been over the wall since the goat-fuckers pulled out,’ H explained. ‘He went to find out where they’ve gone.’

Murmured words of admiration tumbled out from the assembled men, veterans all.

‘I know.’ H smiled. ‘He’s a tough fucking bastard. The good news is that we couldn’t ask for a better cohort commander. The bad news is that the hairy bastards haven’t gone home. They’ve just moved.’

Shoulders slumped a little at this news. The centurion gestured that we join him at a sketch map stretched out on his desk.

‘Here’re the fortresses on the upper Rhine’ – he pointed out with the vine cane that was a symbol of the centurion’s authority – ‘where the river’s crossing points are.

‘We’re here.’ H pointed out to a lonely point within hostile borders. ‘And what the clever bastard Arminius has figured out is that he doesn’t need to sit on top of the fort to contain us.’

‘So where are his men?’ an old sweat asked.

‘Here.’ H pointed to a position between the fort and the Rhine. ‘Malchus found them sitting on the road that leads to the Rhine, about twenty miles away. It’s a few thousand men, so more than enough to outnumber us and keep us bottled up here. It’s also far enough from the crossing that they’re not antagonizing anyone into coming over the river and attacking.’

‘Where’s Arminius?’ I asked. ‘Where’s the rest of his army?’

‘No sign of them.’

The century’s second in command, H’s optio, spoke up. ‘If Arminius is gone, and there’re just a few thousand of them between us and the Rhine, we need to get word to the lower Rhine legions. They can cross and smash them out of the way.’

H nodded. ‘Malchus had two men with him on his recce. He’s sent them to the Rhine. If they get through, they’re to ask that the legions clear the road from the bridge to here.’

‘They won’t do it if they don’t know where the rest of Arminius’s army is,’ a voice grumbled. It belonged to a man named Albus, a veteran I could sense was interested in his own survival above all else. ‘It looks like a trap, doesn’t it?’ he pressed.

H blew air from between his lips. ‘Prepare for a long winter,’ he answered. ‘If they come, they come, but let’s rely on ourselves to get out of this.’ He smiled, trying to spin the situation to the best of his cheerful ability. ‘Look, we’ve got stores, we’ve got shelter, and – for now at least – we’re not facing attack.’

‘How long will our supplies last, boss?’ the optio asked.

‘We were good for two months. I expect the prefect will be announcing rationing soon, though.’

‘Will the archers be on reduced rations?’ Albus grumbled.

‘Of course they will. The civilians too.’

‘Don’t need the archers if there’re no attacks,’ the man countered sourly. ‘That would be a few hundred less mouths to feed.’

‘You hear what they did last night?’ A veteran grinned. ‘Fourth Century boys found three of them outside the building the civvies use for washing. They’d cut a bit of wood out of the wall for a peep, and were having a good tug when the watch found them.’

Someone laughed. ‘Surprised they didn’t join in if they were Fourth Century. Fucking animals.’

‘Well, makes a change for the Syrians anyway,’ the veteran concluded his story. ‘Didn’t know they were interested in women as well as boys.’

‘Doesn’t matter who they fuck.’ H shook his head. ‘We’d be getting our bones picked clean if it wasn’t for them. Now listen. On the subject of corpses, I’ve got some great news for you.’

I heard myself groan with the other men. Now that the imminent threat of German attack was gone, I knew what that great news would be.

‘We’ve got to clean out the ditch.’

It had been over a week since the first of the Germans had died in the ditch, and the smell of decay hit us before the eastern gate had even been opened. When the wood did creak back, a century in full battle dress marched out to form a screen a hundred yards away from the fort. Dressed simply in tunics, the men of our own century now filed out beneath the gatehouse. Two dozen archers came with us, the Syrians looking to salvage what arrows they could.

‘Don’t be shy, lads,’ H smiled, his words muffled by the neckerchief tied over his face. ‘Grab a German friend, and carry them to their trenches. Once they’re all in you can have the rest of the day to yourselves. You’re in your own time, now.’

‘Why can’t we just bury them in the ditch?’ Statius grumbled.

‘Because it wouldn’t be a ditch then, would it, you dickhead?’ Stumps snapped.

‘Lu-lu-look at this one.’ Balbus pointed; an arrow had gone through an eye and clean out the back of the tribesman’s skull. Like the other corpses around him, the German’s skin was sagging and patterned with decomposition.

‘I feel desensitized to this smell,’ Stumps grunted as he lifted the dead arms of a stick-thin German boy. ‘Thank you, Dog. I didn’t realize what a service your arse-breath was doing for the legions.’

‘You’re welcome.’ Dog smiled, Stumps’s insults washing over him.

It was unpleasant work: rancid gas escaped from dead lungs; rotten limbs tore from their sockets; insects and larvae crawled and wriggled inside wounds and eye sockets emptied by crows.

The same jokes crept up, those spoken on battlefields the world over: ‘he’s ’armless’, ‘he’s legless’, ‘he got the point’, ‘he lost his head’. The humour was cruel, dark and necessary. As the graft wore on, some soldiers lost their breakfast, but none seemed to lose their mind.

One German tried to change that.

Statius squealed like a pig and jumped back from the corpse he had been reaching for. ‘Fuck! He fucking moved!’

‘You’re a soft cunt.’ Stumps smirked. ‘It’s just air leaving him. You never seen a body before—Fuck me, he moved!’

I joined the veteran and we gazed down into a grey face. Lack of beard made me think that the corpse was young, but the skin was drained of life.