Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

Then, before he could speak, I turned my back on grief.

As promised, my brothers carried me from the town to camp. They set me down in my bed, and when I woke in the morning, I wished that I hadn’t.

I was alone. A few days ago, this room had been home to seven other soldiers. Seven young men under my command. All gone now. All dead. I thought of Gums. How he had pleaded for life. How his eyeball had dangled on his cheek.

I took a deep breath. The air was warm but my skin was cold and bumped. I stood. My body held. No ache in my skull. No more than I would expect after drinking, anyway.

I looked at the seven empty beds. Where were those boys now? Buried, or gnawed at by animals where they had fallen? Were they with the gods? Their families?

Something caught my eye. It rested at the head of one of the bunks. I picked it up. Held the dainty thing in my calloused hands. It was a horse carved from wood. It was worn. Ancient-looking. Instinct told me that it was the childhood toy of one of the boys who had died under my command, left in the safety of the barracks to await his return, too precious to be risked on a battlefield.

I looked into the creature’s carved eyes. ‘He’s not coming back.’

I wanted to be heartless, then. To show indifference. I thought about hurling the thing out of the window, or throwing it into the hearth of our stove, ready for winter. I wanted to show myself that the deaths of the seven young men I was supposed to lead had not affected me. That I was an island amidst the flow of misery that was washing over our legion.

But I could not. Instead I placed the toy at the head of my own bunk.

I had been looking at it for a long time when the call for assembly was sounded.

In armour polished by my comrades, I stood outside the barrack block with what was left of our century. Where there had been eighty, there were now thirty-five. Another dozen of our comrades were in the hospital. Some were expected to return. Others had lost limbs to the bone-saw.

Varo stood at the front of the formation in the place that Centurion Justus had held, and Priscus after him. Both men had died for their leadership. To the rear of our thinned ranks Octavius stood in the position of optio. I begrudged neither man their rank. Station was not something that I sought. They had stepped up as others fell, and I simply wanted to fight. That desire was as strong in me as ever, I realized. There was too much to think of, otherwise.

‘Century!’ Varo boomed in his deep bass. ‘Atten- shun !’

Our sandals stamped down in unison. Something about having been in battle – having fought and bled as the Eighth – had pushed us further into becoming one mind and body.

I had no idea why the parade had been called, and there had been no time to ask my brothers, but now the reason for it marched across the front of our formation and returned the salute of my friend. It was our cohort commander, his left arm bandaged, and with him was a man I would never have expected to see at such a pathetic assembly of soldiers.

He was our legion commander, known to us as Hook-nose – it stood as sharp as a reaping scythe beneath his scarred brow.

The legate turned to look over the bedraggled century. Was that sorrow that I saw in his narrow eyes? Love?

Maybe. It was certainly pride. ‘Men’ – his chest swelled as he began – ‘yesterday, I spoke with you as a legion’ – so I had missed that, thank the gods – ‘but today I wanted to see you like this. I wanted to see the family that bore such heroes.

‘We have faced dark days, but from darkness come the greatest shining glories.’

I had no idea what Hook-nose was talking about. I let my eyes flick to Varo. His soldier’s mask was in place. Impassive. Stoic. It looked over the heads of the men in front of him. He had done so on the battlefield, while I’d let my own eyes drop to the horrors at my feet.

‘You are Legionary Varo?’ the legate asked of my brother.

‘Yes, sir!’

‘It’s a severe offence to lie to an officer…’ The aristocrat smiled as he delivered the well-worn line. ‘… Centurion .’ Varo’s promotion was confirmed. ‘Well deserved!’

‘Thank you, sir!’

‘I hear you’re the man who began the battle cry?’ the officer went on. ‘ Fear the Eighth. ’

For a second, Varo’s mask slipped. ‘I… I don’t remember, sir.’

‘He was, sir!’ someone shouted from the ranks, and the legate smiled.

‘They fear us all right, Centurion Varo,’ the officer told him, his tone earnest. ‘After that battle, they fear us, and I think that your cry is a fitting challenge for this legion. When we face our enemy, “Fear the Eighth” will be our call.’

‘Thank you, sir!’

The cohort commander stepped in to avoid further embarrassment to his newest centurion. ‘Legionary Octavius?’ he asked of the parade. ‘Report.’

‘Yes, sir!’ Octavius answered, marching to the front of the formation.

The legate returned his salute. ‘I confirm your appointment to optio.’ The officer smiled proudly.

‘Thank you, sir!’

As Octavius marched back to the rear of the formation, I expected that the officers would leave. Maybe speak some words about glory, first.

I didn’t expect that they’d both look straight at me.

‘Legionary Corvus!’ the cohort commander ordered. ‘March out!’

Shit.

Stiff as a rock and red from the attention, I marched out to the front of the parade and saluted the legate.

‘Legionary Corvus reporting as ordered, sir!’

The commander of a butchered legion looked at me as though I were his firstborn son. ‘Legionary Corvus, your actions on the battlefield are in keeping with the highest traditions of this legion, and for your part in preventing our eagle from falling into enemy hands, I give you this.’

I followed his eyes. There was something in the cohort commander’s hands – a gold disc, engraved with the face of Jupiter. The legate took it from him and affixed it to my armour.

I was a decorated soldier.

‘Thank you, sir,’ I mumbled. What will Marcus think? I asked myself as I threw up a salute and prepared to fall back into the ranks.

‘Not yet,’ my cohort commander said quietly.

I stood rigid. What now? The legate had that look again: pride. Buckets of the bloody stuff.

‘Legionary Corvus, you saved our eagle in battle.’ Hook-nose spoke loudly enough so that everyone could hear. ‘You saved the eagle of the Eighth,’ he said with conviction, ‘and for that, it gives me great pleasure to honour you with this appointment: as the legion’s standard-bearer!’

Shit .

The cohort commander began the applause. It gave me moments to form a stumbling denial. ‘Sir,’ I began as it died away, ‘I… I just want to kill the enemy, sir.’

‘You’ll have plenty of chances to do that, standard-bearer.’ Hook-nose grinned like a hungry shark. ‘The rebels have had their turn. Now we go on the offensive.’

I looked at the bird on a stick. The sacred totem. The symbol of our legion. The only thing it stirred in me was memory. The feel of Brutus on my shoulder as I’d carried him from the pile of dead and dying, and back to the ranks of what seemed like our last stand.

Maybe that was the point, I realized. Maybe that was the idea behind the eagles. That a veteran would see, hear and feel those moments where he had fought and bled beside his brothers. With their sacrifice in mind, surely he would be more likely to offer his own in the glory of Rome, for what was that glory when it was broken down? It was brother fighting for brother. Comrade dying for comrade. The Empire’s borders would grow as a result of it, but on the battlefield, it was the kingdom of one’s friends that was a soldier’s concern.