John Stack - Ship of Rome

‘Only the two legionaries from the II maniple. They were stationed at the gate beneath our watchtower.’

Marcus got up and walked to the entrance to his tent. From his vantage point he could see the gate sixty yards away. There was only one guard on duty.

‘ Stercus !’

His eyes whipped across to the tents of the II maniple. Aelius, the centurion, was striding away from his tent towards the centre of the encampment, towards the legate’s quarters. Behind him the men of his maniple were talking animatedly in groups, with individuals breaking off to head to other parts of the camp.

‘The bloody fool,’ Marcus cursed.

‘You, come with me!’ he ordered, and walked out to intercept Aelius. The legionary followed.

The three men met twenty yards short of the legate’s command tent. Aelius saw the parchment in Marcus’s hand.

‘By the gods, Marcus, we’re lost.’

‘Get a hold of yourself, Aelius,’ Marcus spat. ‘Curse it, man, your maniple will spread the news to the whole camp before roll call.’

‘I-I-I…’ Aelius stammered, looking back over his shoulder at the sound of raised voices, realizing his mistake.

Marcus turned abruptly and walked determinately towards the commander’s quarters, the legionary following behind again, leaving Aelius standing alone in the middle of the parade ground. They passed the hospital tent and, as they did, both men instinctively covered their mouths with their hands for protection.

The first case of typhus had been confirmed a week before, the legionary collapsing on parade, the telltale rash on his chest only found when he was stripped inside the hospital tent. The word had spread like wildfire, the dread news that plague stalked the encampment driving the last remnants of hope from every soldier of the Ninth Legion. Malnourished as they were, the men were ripe for the scythe of typhus, and the hospital tent was already full, a hellish place where the moans of dying men rent the air.

Two legionaries of the III maniple stood to attention as Marcus reached the entrance of the tent, their fists slamming against their armoured breast-plates in unison. Marcus ignored them and ducked his head under the opening into the outer awning. Without requesting permission he strode into the inner tent. Megellus was seated behind his desk, his expression immediately hostile at the unannounced interruption. He hadn’t slept the night before, his mind in turmoil as it fixated on the deteriorating situation of his legions, and his face was drawn and colourless. The admonition he had formed in his mind fled from his lips as he noticed Marcus’s uneasy expression.

‘What is it, Centurion?’

‘Beg to report, Legate, these were stuck to a tree outside the main gate using a Roman knife.’

Megellus stood up to take the proffered parchment and ring. His eyes widened as he immediately recognized the ring. He turned it over to read an inscription on the underside of the face.

‘No, it can’t be…’ he muttered, the parchment in his hand forgotten.

‘Who found this?’ he asked suddenly, his anxious face betraying his mounting apprehension.

‘This man,’ Marcus replied, stepping aside to allow the legionary to move forward.

‘Tell me everything,’ Megellus ordered.

The soldier quickly related his discovery of the message. Megellus listened in silence.

‘Who knows of this?’ he asked as the legionary finished.

‘Word is spreading throughout the camp as we speak,’ Marcus admitted angrily, silently cursing the centurion of the II maniple for his carelessness.

Megellus cursed as he sat back into his chair, taking up the parchment as he did so, dreading what he would find written by the hand of the enemy.

Marcus watched the legate intently. Megellus’s stature seemed to dissipate before his very eyes as he read the Carthaginians’ report of their total victory at Lipara. When Marcus had read the report minutes before, his mind had tried to dismiss the words as enemy propaganda, a vicious ploy to eradicate the last vestiges of hope within the Roman encampment. The ring, however, put paid to that hope, although Marcus could not fathom the special significance that Megellus had afforded it, beyond it being crude proof as to the veracity of the report.

As Megellus finished reading the report, he unclasped his right hand to reveal the ring within. Twenty galleys lost, three hundred dead, fifteen hundred in chains. The defeat was absolute. He twisted the metal band in his hand, turning it once more into the light to read the two inscriptions. Megellus had recognized it immediately. He had seen it many times before, each year on the finger of a different man. Each year on the finger of the senior consul of the Senate of Rome.

Megellus’s gaze lifted from the ring to the face of the centurion before him. Marcus’s face was grim, the cheeks drawn from fatigue and hunger, but Megellus could see that his strength and determination were still intact, elements forged from a life serving in the legions. The legate wondered how long those would last in the face of such adversity.

The remaining meagre supplies of the Ninth were disappearing fast and with the defeat at Lipara, there was now no hope of resupply in the near future. Megellus had lost all contact with the Second at Segeste, the three-day march through enemy territory an unbridgeable gulf. No doubt the camp prefect was reading an identical parchment that very morning, and Megellus could only guess as to what condition the Second was in. If the Ninth was a mirror guide, the camp at Segeste was close to collapse.

Megellus stood up, his will forcing his body to stand erect. His aching muscles protested at the enforced activity and a fleeting fear ran through the legate’s mind. He dismissed it brutally, telling himself the ache was from salt deprivation and not the onset of the monstrous disease that had struck down over eighty of his men.

Marcus stood to attention as Megellus addressed him.

‘Assemble the men for roll call,’ he ordered, his voice controlled and authoritative.

Marcus saluted and left.

The legate adjusted the straps of his armour, conscious of the need to be an example to his men. The forlorn mood in the camp over the past few days had been palpable. With news of the defeat at Lipara spreading like wildfire, it was about to get much worse. The breaking point had not yet been reached but Megellus knew that, once it was upon them, the men of the Ninth, faced with starvation, would be deaf to orders and near impossible to command.

The campaign was only eight weeks old. If relief did not arrive soon, Megellus would be forced to abandon the cities of Makella and Segeste to their fate and march his legions back east to Brolium. The port was ten days’ march away, ten days through enemy-held territory, during which the Carthaginians would allow the legions no quarter. It would be a march across the landscape of Hades. Only strength and determination would see them through, two pillars that were crumbling before the legate’s eyes under the weight of pestilence and starvation.

Gaius Duilius looked out at the calm waters off Fiumicino to the fifty Roman galleys riding gently against their anchor lines. They had been launched two days before but workmen still clambered over their decks and rigging to complete the final stages of construction. Within twenty-four hours they would sail to Ostia, to join the fifty completed galleys already stationed there, swelling the numbers of the reborn Classis Romanus. The men worked with dogged determination, a sense of finality in their efforts as if the very ships they created would lead short, ill-fated lives. A similar emotion was suffusing the sailors and legionaries of the fleet, a dread that sucked the fighting spirit of all and sapped the discipline of the camp.