Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

The soldier had a point, but I shook my head. ‘Arminius knows who and what’s where. If he didn’t, he’d have been pulling men out of the ranks to find out before we ever got here.’

The man kept his lips shut, unconvinced.

‘Look what he did to our officers,’ I pressed. ‘You don’t kill them all out of hand like that unless you already have the information that’s in their heads.’

This time, the legionary shrugged his shoulders. After wiping the back of a muddied hand across his face, he confided in us with his voice low, his eyes never leaving the guards: ‘Last time I was here there was a cohort.’

A cohort was a subdivision of a legion, further divided into six units, know as centuries, of eighty men. Close to five hundred heavy infantry on the fort’s walls would be a formidable force.

‘Was the cohort full strength?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ the man admitted. ‘I doubt it. Varus was sending us every which way, wasn’t he? Garrisoning every fucking mud hut with a goat.’

All with Arminius’s insidious encouragement, no doubt, spreading the occupying forces thinly enough so that they could be destroyed piecemeal by the tribes.

Until now.

‘There were arrows in the German wounded, weren’t there?’ I asked, as this was unusual. Legionary units themselves were not manned with archers, and these specialists would come from auxiliary cohorts. Units drawn up on the outside of the Empire, the soldiers recruited with the promise of Roman citizenship at the end of their twenty-five years’ service.

‘Weren’t here when I passed through, but that was beginning of summer. Could be all changed now.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Vinicius.’

‘Do you know a way into the fort?’

The soldier laughed, guessing at my meaning. ‘Sure. Through the gate or over the wall.’ He half snorted. ‘Don’t try anything stupid, my friend. I don’t want to die in this ditch.’

I caught Brando sneering at the comment, then saw his eyes come to rest on the form of his comrade, Ekkebert. The Batavian’s cheeks were hollow and grey, his eyes shrunken. Ekkebert’s strength had ebbed quickly during the march, and the sight of a fighting Roman force had done nothing to revive it.

Brando asked the man something in their native language. There was no reply. When Brando turned away, I saw the concern for his comrade etched deep into his own drawn face.

We dug on in silence. Silence except for the sound of metal breaking into dirt and the hard breathing that went with it. Deep into the night, a German adorned with a thick golden torque about his neck passed by where we laboured. The wealth marked him out as a man of station, and his visit appeared to be an inspection of the work. It seemed as though we had passed, for our guards then came forwards with drawn blades and their customary insults. For a moment I feared we had dug our own graves, and was loath to drop my shovel, my last feeble line of defence. Brando sensed my hesitation, and spoke quietly as he threw his own tool into the dirt.

‘They won’t waste graves on us, Felix.’

Of course he was right. I dropped the shovel. The tools were collected, and then we prisoners were herded together and marched away from the fort. Thus far into our enslavement we had been held unbound, the promise of hideous torture enough to keep us in our place, but Arminius and his leaders must have known that the sight of Roman defiance would lift our spirits, and so that night we were tied tightly by our hands, six men to a rope. I found myself between Micon and Brando, our shoulders pressed together so snugly that I could feel the twitch of their muscles.

Micon soon spoke up. ‘I can’t feel my hands.’

A week ago Stumps would have jumped on such a statement. Can’t feel your brains, more like, or some other insult would have passed his lips. Not now. Stumps was enduring his captivity with the quiet detachment of a condemned man. We missed his humour. A warrior had to find absurdity in suffering. How else could he repeatedly face it?

With Stumps silent, it fell to me to try and distract Micon from the pain in his hands and the cold that made his teeth chatter in the darkness. ‘You’re from Pompeii, aren’t you?’

‘Y-y-yes,’ he stammered eventually.

‘I’ve never been there. How is it?’

‘It’s a-a-all right.’

‘Pretty girls?’

‘Some. Yes.’

So it went on. Then, sometime during the early hours, my body graciously gave in to sleep. When I woke, my limbs were concrete in their joints. My throat was dry, my empty stomach churning. I felt every mile I had carried since the day of my enlistment into the legions. Every wound, every bruise, every fall. I just wanted to sleep, but German threats and spear-points persuaded me otherwise.

They marched us towards the fort. All about us I saw the tribal war bands with their painted shields and thick beards. These warriors were stirring in the grey dawn, but there was no sense of urgency or purpose to their movement. Fires were being lit, and animals butchered, the reek of smoke and beast thick in the air. If another attack on the fort was coming, then it was not imminent.

Our guards halted us at the ditches we had dug the previous day. These defensive works were now manned by tired-looking German sentries, posted there to guard against breakout or raid by the fort’s garrison.

‘Slaves, look at me!’ a German voice commanded in Latin. I turned in the direction of the sound, seeing a barrel-chested warrior, his beard a rich chestnut. ‘You will dig, like this!’

The German pointed his sword towards the fort, and then used the blade to cut a zigzagging line in the dirt. I grasped his intention. Having been savaged by the archers on the fort’s wall, Arminius would use the trenches to creep closer, and minimize the time his men were exposed to the missiles. Spoil from the digging would be placed on the fort-facing side of the trench to add further cover from both view and arrows. The basic siege work would be highly effective in giving protection to the assaulting troops.

Of course, someone would have to dig the trenches first.

Shovels were thrust into our hands. Spear-points were levelled at our waists. Our choice was simple – risk Roman arrow, or suffer certain German spear.

We began to dig.

The progress was good. Even knowing that each yard brought us closer to the risk of arrows, there was an irresistible pull in knowing that we were inching closer to a Roman bastion. I knew that the digging of this trench would provide my best chance of escape, but, out of range of the archers, our German guards prowled over us on the ditch’s lip, and that first day provided no opening, only burning muscles and parched throat. Then, as dusk was approaching, I heard the sound of a body hitting the floor.

It was Ekkebert.

‘Felix, help me!’ Brando whispered, desperate to get his exhausted comrade on to his feet before the guards spotted the useless slave. I shuffled towards the Batavians and grabbed a piece of Ekkebert’s tunic beneath his armpit.

We began to lift. But we were too late.

A half-dozen German warriors appeared instantly on the lip of the trench. They looked down at us with uncompromising disdain.

Brando spoke to them. I could not understand the words, but they were respectful. Almost pleading.

The enemy laughed at his hope. Three of them dropped into the trench beside us. My hands were on Ekkebert’s tunic, but my eyes were on the spear-points above us.

Brando whispered something to his ruined friend, doubtless urging him to his feet. The words fell on deaf ears. Then a German hand gripped me by the shoulder. I saw another grab Brando by the hair. They pulled at us, and in that second, we were forced to make the choice between dying with a comrade or abandoning him.