Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

‘Seen enough,’ he told us. Words were almost unfamiliar to the man after ten days of near total silence.

We covered another eight miles before we stopped to build our hide, H anxious to make good speed and deliver our news to the fort. We were also on the last day of our rations, though there were plenty of icy streams to drink from.

On the second night of our withdrawal, H stopped us with hours of darkness remaining.

‘Don’t want to turn up in daylight and get picked off by their scouts,’ he explained. ‘Not after this.’

And so we spent our last night in the dirt. It began to rain, the stripped trees offering no protection from the wind-lashed hail that struck our skin. We huddled together, sleep an impossibility. Instead we thought of hot water. We thought of baths. We thought of food, and firelight, and dry clothes. We thought of our friends, and I thought of Linza.

The next night, we returned to the fort.

Watchwords were called. The guard commander was summoned. The gate creaked open, and we stepped inside the walls.

Torchlight greeted our arrival. What did those soldiers see by the flames? Weathered faces bearded like our enemy and as filthy as the lowest beggar in Rome. Clothes torn from bramble, soiled and repulsive.

But it was our eyes that made them tense, for they were both wild, and sharp. They took in everything, and nothing. They were the eyes of men stripped of civilization, returned to their most primal. The soldiers knew that we were animals, and they had opened the gate to let us in.

H led us at speed to the headquarters building. Already I saw word of our return begin to spread from the soldiers present. Soon, the entire fort would know that a trio of individuals had entered, barely recognizable as soldiers, yet possessing the watchwords that Malchus had ordered every man of the centuries to learn by heart.

The guard commander escorted us inside the building at the fort’s centre. A nervous-looking clerk showed us to an empty room where we were to wait until the fort’s leadership could be roused.

‘Food and wine,’ Titus growled at the clerk, who went scurrying in search of it.

Prefect Caedicius arrived moments later. His face had thinned, but his eyes were alive.

‘Did you find us a way out?’ he asked, desperate to know if there was an escape from Arminius’s trap.

It was H who spoke.

‘We did.’

Dawn had come and gone by the time that we had finished our debriefing at the headquarters building. Malchus had arrived soon after Caedicius, and to both officers we had reported on all that we had witnessed of the German camp, and their movements.

‘We just need a storm,’ H concluded. ‘We get that, sir, and we have a chance.’

‘How are the skies looking?’ Caedicius asked of Malchus.

‘Good, sir. Cloud’s building. Winds are picking up. Could be as soon as tomorrow.’

‘Don’t waste any time, then. Get the garrison ready to move, and increase the patrols around the walls. Spread the word that anyone attempting to leave before I order it will be put to death. We can’t have word getting to the goat-loving scum.’

‘Understood, sir,’ Malchus grunted. ‘Is there anything else?’

There was not, and Malchus left. If he had praise for Centurion H and the information we had brought, he took it with him. Caedicius noticed, and smiled apologetically.

‘The cohort commander, as do I, knows that you have suffered hardship to bring us this information. Titus, you can consider this your slate cleaned. For you two’ – he turned to myself and H – ‘when we reach the Rhine, I’ll be recommending you both for the Golden Crown.’

The Golden Crown. An award for valour which brought with it the doubling of pay. Our commanders knew that the promise of financial gain was the best way of encouraging soldiers to commit deeds that they paid for in blood.

We murmured thanks. Coin was not in our minds now. Fresh clothes, our beds and food were – Titus had thrice dispatched the frightened clerk to fetch us more bread and wine.

‘You’re dismissed, men.’ Caedicius put out his hand to shake ours one by one. ‘You’ve given us a fighting chance, and that’s all a soldier can ask for. Take the time to rest. I’ll send instructions that you’re exempt all duties and rationing until we get our storm. Take the rest, and build your strength.

‘We’re going home.’

The prefect was wrong. I would never return to my home, but I was now in the closest thing that I had known to it – a barrack room with comrades.

‘All right, lads?’ Stumps spoke up nonchalantly from his bunk as we entered. ‘Did one of you shit himself?’ he asked disgustedly, sniffing the air. The act held for a few moments more before our excited friend sprang forwards, taking us in an embrace that drove the air from our lungs. Brando and Micon followed soon after, adding to the crush.

‘Seriously, though.’ Stumps grimaced, stepping back. ‘I’ve never smelt anything so bad.’

‘Sorry if it offends you,’ Titus replied, before lunging quickly towards his friend, grabbing Stumps’s surprised face and shoving it into a rancid armpit.

‘What was that?’ Titus asked as cries of muffled horror and laughter echoed about the room.

Stumps gasped as he was let free. ‘People have been condemned to the arena for less than that.’ He scowled. ‘Nice beards though. Yours looks really good, Felix.’

‘You like it?’ I asked, feeling at the dark whiskers.

‘Of course I do.’ He smiled. ‘It covers your face.’

Laughter erupted anew, relief in every note.

‘What can we do to help?’ Brando offered.

‘Stoke that fire up,’ Titus told him. ‘I’m going to wash, then I want to feel like I’m back in the desert.’

‘Where’s H?’ Stumps asked, but he wasn’t concerned. Doubtless the rumour mill had already informed him that three men had entered the fort that night.

‘Gone to his own quarters. Wanted some peace.’

‘Probably wanking himself silly after two weeks.’ Stumps laughed, full of humour now that his friends were returned to him.

‘Maybe,’ Titus countered. ‘Why don’t you go offer him a hand?’

‘I see you got funnier on your picnic.’ Stumps rolled his eyes. ‘I hate to think what you lot were doing to stay warm. But look, what happens in the field, stays in the field. Worked for the Spartans.’

Titus shook his head. ‘You done?’

‘I could probably scrape out a few more.’

Titus snorted. ‘If your mother’d scraped out more I could be sitting by a hot stove now, instead of talking to a dickhead. Now be a mate and get those flames going.’

Stumps obliged with a smile. His eyes were on the fire, but I knew that his next words were meant for me.

‘I can see that you’re gagging to ask.’

‘I am,’ I admitted.

My friend turned to me, brother to brother, and grinned. ‘She looks as bad as you do.’ He spoke warmly. ‘Minus the beard, of course. She’s been worried about you, mate, and you know what that means.’

‘I should go and see her,’ I confirmed.

‘Well, yeah, but…’ His voice trailed away as he took in the dishevelled figure in front of him. ‘Probably not when you’re looking like you just crawled out of a grave.’

I laughed, and took the wineskin that Micon held out to me.

I was home.

Hot air with my comrades was followed by hot food, hot water and hot shaves. Stumps had already acquired clean clothing for our return – a symptom of his friendship – and I now pulled these on to my gaunt frame as our comrades quizzed Titus about our mission.

‘Just let me sleep, you bastards,’ he growled from his back, lids shut.