Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

And how to do that?

By sacrificing all for the glory of Rome.

I smelt the results of such thinking long before I saw the hospital. It was the stench of conflict. Blood. Piss. Puke. Shit. Here on the valley floor, the reek of open wounds hung between the mountains like a curse. Up on the peaks, violent death waited, but down here, amongst the tents of the legion’s reserve, death lingered, toying with its victims through the suffering of others.

I walked with Hook-nose. The legate wanted to pay a visit to the steady trickle of wounded that were being sent back as a result of the enemy’s ambushes. There were sick men in the legion too, but we’d be giving their dwellings a wide berth. ‘You can’t catch an amputation,’ Hook-nose had said, wise enough to know that even the fittest legionary could fall down without so much as a touch. ‘Many of these men will be invalided out of the service now, if they survive,’ he’d then explained. ‘They need to know why.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘It won’t be easy for them, standard-bearer, but they’ll take strength knowing that their suffering is for Rome.’

‘Yes, sir.’

We weren’t alone. A half-dozen officers and a section of guards walked with us through the heat; the valley’s air was as still as a tomb. That it was becoming one for so many soldiers was evidenced by the rows of graves freshly scratched into the dirt. The valley floor was hard here; the resting places of the dead were shallow. A fox or a dog had got at one of the fallen, a half-eaten hand protruding from the earth in friendly greeting.

‘Give that man some decency!’ Hook-nose growled at one of his officers. I looked behind me, and saw that the section of troops in our wake were amused by the macabre sight. One waved back to the corpse. He did so discreetly and behind his officers’ backs, a clandestine skill developed quickly by those in the ranks.

I didn’t blame the man for the act, nor feel any ill will towards him for it. I knew why these young soldiers were cracking whispered jokes and hiding sick smiles – they were scared. The stench of decay was becoming stronger, and with it came the moans of men who had found steel in their flesh. At some point in this campaign, the section of troops behind me would be ordered to tramp their way towards the sky, and to put their heads into the rebels’ noose in the mountains. They would face ambush. Disappearing sentries. The whisper of death in the night. I could see from the lack of lines on their faces that it was not something they’d already experienced. Here now was nervous fear. After the mountains, they would be painted with the look of those who had been driven beyond fatigue and emotion. I had seen it in the men of the Sixth Cohort when I had left Varo and Octavius and returned to the valley floor. Their eyes were hollow, as though they were seeing through me, and into the next life. Perhaps, when I made my discovery, I looked the same way.

Marcus was not with them.

‘ Where is he? ’

Nobody spoke.

‘ Where’s his century? ’

Nobody talked.

The legate’s runners had found me before I could ask any more – I was to collect the legion’s eagle, and accompany Hook-nose on his mission to inspire the cut and the stabbed and the ripped and the beaten.

A surgeon met us at the tents. He was a stranger to sleep. His clothes were wet where he had made an effort to have them cleaned before this visit. It hadn’t worked. The toga was as stained as his hands. Hook-nose shook one.

‘Show me to my men.’

I lowered Gallus and ducked under the tent flap. The tent’s sides had been rolled up where possible to allow for some breeze, but even so, the humid heat beneath the canvas was like a wet slap in the face.

‘As you were, men,’ Hook-nose told the wounded men who were trying to either stand or sit to attention.

I cast my eye over them. A dozen. All young. At least, I assumed they were – one had his face swathed entirely in bandages. It was to him that the legate spoke first, after placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘This is your legion commander. What cohort are you from, soldier?’

The words were muffled by material, but there was no doubting the pride in them. ‘The Fighting First, sir.’

I saw Hook-nose smile at soldier’s pluck. ‘So you fought in the battle of the night and day?’

‘I did, sir.’ The bandages nodded. ‘I was front rank, for a while.’

‘Did you cut the bastards down?’

‘I did, sir. I don’t know how many, sir, but it was a lot, sir. Sir, do you think I can get back to my century soon, sir? I’d really like to get back to them!’

I saw pride wash over Hook-nose with such power that his face twitched. The legate turned, and looked at the surgeon.

The man shook his head, pointed at his own eyes, and then shook his head a second time.

‘We’ll see what we can do,’ Hook-nose promised the blind man. He gestured to me then. Guessing what was on the legate’s mind, I lowered Gallus so that the eagle was within the man’s grasp. Hook-nose guided the soldier’s hand until it rested on the precious metal.

‘Touched by the Emperor’s own hand, and now your own, soldier.’ Hook-nose spoke with reverence. ‘You may not be with your cohort today, but so long as this eagle is carried you will always be with the Eighth. Our fallen, our wounded, from this war, the past, and the next. You don’t need to worry about getting back to your comrades, soldier. You are already with them.’

We moved on to the next man.

Hook-nose spoke to all of them. Every one. Almost without fail, the soldier asked the legion commander when he could rejoin his unit. On two occasions, I saw battle-scarred veterans weep – not because of their injuries, but because they knew that their wounds would prevent them from ever standing beside their brothers again.

‘There are no malingerers here,’ the head surgeon promised Hook-nose. ‘These men are true heroes of Rome, sir. They just want to fight.’

As an aristocrat, the legate had been trained in oration since childhood, but words failed him as his heart beat with pride at the valour of his men.

‘How did I come to deserve such lions?’ I heard him mutter to a tribune as we walked free of the tents, and that same pride had gripped me as we had moved from man to man – soldiers who were willing to rip out their own stitches if it meant being able to fight alongside their friends.

But there was only one lion in the valley that I called brother.

Marcus.

I had to find him.

I walked into one of the tents that made up the legion’s headquarters while on the campaign trail, the canvas trapping the smell of hot air and unwashed bodies.

I laid eyes on a clerk. He shrank a little when he saw me. There was fear on his face, but it was the ink on his fingers that interested me – in front of him was a long list of names. Before the clerk could object, I snatched it up.

Casualties. Lots of them. A dispatch to Rome of statistics. Numbers that would multiply in grief. Tears would be shed. Orations would be given. Libations would be offered. It was the way of Roman war. First blood on the field, then ink on the page. A chain of misery written into parchment that would claw its way across the Empire. At its end, families would feel the same sorrow in their hearts as did the fallen soldier’s brothers. Tragedy from the mountains delivered to cities, villages and farmsteads.

‘I can read it for you, if you like?’ It was a kind offer from the clerk, and didn’t deserve the harshness of my reply.

‘Shut your mouth,’ I growled. My father had insisted that I learn my letters. One of the many lessons he had taught me. My possessed eyes darted across the lists, searching for something I was desperate not to find.