Eagles at War (44 page)

‘I heard what you did to those naked fuckers, sir,’ said Fenestela when they had separated, smiling. Respect shone from his eyes. ‘Few men could have done that.’

‘I was full sure I was dead. That helped, like as not,’ Tullus said, shrugging. ‘Mars was kind to me. So too were a couple of the wounded lads, who hamstrung the last whoreson. If it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t be here.’ His vision blurred for a moment, and he swayed.

‘You all right, sir?’ asked Fenestela, steadying him.

Tullus straightened his spine, grimaced and shook off Fenestela’s hand. ‘Aye. I have to be. Is there anything to drink? I’m fucking parched.’

Fenestela called for a wine skin.

Reinvigorated a little by several mouthfuls of undiluted wine – Campanian, it tasted like – Tullus sent word to the other centuries in the cohort that they were to treat the injured fast, and to be ready to march. When the messenger returned, he wasn’t carrying good news. Three of Tullus’ centurions reported that they were down to half their usual strength. A fourth centurion was dead, and the last would not live another hour. Cursing at the delay dealing with this would cause – and with the First Cohort already on the move in front – Tullus ordered the depleted centuries to unite, forming two that were full strength, and for them to do it with all haste.

For a time after that, Fortuna appeared to have cast her capricious gaze elsewhere, leaving Mars to hold his shield over Tullus and his soldiers. The thunder stopped, and the rain eased to a gentle drizzle. There was even a hint of sunshine through a few breaks in the cloud. A rainbow formed overhead, its beauty a stark contrast to the bloodbath taking place at ground level. From somewhere on the moorland beyond the bog came the lonely, warbling cries of curlews. With no sign of the tribesmen other than heads peering over the earthen rampart, Tullus’ soldiers regrouped and got moving.

When they caught up with the First Cohort, it was travelling at a snail’s pace. Before long, it ground to a complete halt. The unit had come under attack again. Hundreds of warriors rushed out from behind the German earthworks, threatening to overwhelm the First through sheer weight of numbers. With worry gnawing at his guts, Tullus ordered his tired soldiers forward to its aid. They managed to fight their way to the unit’s rear after a time, with the loss of two men. If Tullus had thought things would prove easier having another cohort to one side, he was mistaken. It might have worked if the First hadn’t lost so many junior officers and centurions – but it had. From his position at the far right of his soldiers, abutting the First, he could see the unit’s legionaries weakening like an undercut riverbank hit by a winter flood.

It was unusual to mix troops from two different cohorts, but desperate times called for desperate measures. During a brief respite, Tullus had Fenestela take his place in the front rank. Then, leading half his own century, he made his way behind the First for a short distance, and forward, into the middle of its disrupted formation. The grey-faced, stoop-shouldered legionaries met their arrival with varying degrees of disbelief – and pathetic gratitude. Their spines stiffened too, however, which was what Tullus needed. He interspersed his soldiers between those of the First, all along a section of line eighty men wide, and placed himself in the middle. When the next wave of warriors came charging in, the legionaries stood solid, and threw the enemy back.

They did the same thing on a second occasion, wreaking fearful casualties on the tribesmen. During the short breaks between attacks, Tullus was able to ascertain that his cohort was also holding its own. The rest of the First – to his right – was a different matter altogether. Parts of it were standing their ground, but from the sounds and looks of it – loud cheering from the enemy, and an increase in the force of their assault – other sections were crumbling or had even broken. He began to wonder whether his move to strengthen the First had been wise – if the situation deteriorated much further, the soldiers around him would also crack. If that happened, he and his men would die. Even worse, so too would Fenestela and the rest of his beleaguered century – possibly even his entire cohort.

It was with a sense of real relief, therefore, that Tullus watched the enemy tribesmen pulling back a short time later. They hadn’t been beaten – too many of them were sauntering for that to be the case, and hurling insults over their shoulders at the Romans – but they were withdrawing. For a rest, like as not, he thought, feeling a great need for the same. The horns of an unpleasant dilemma now faced him. Another enemy assault would begin soon. Should he stay put, or return to his men? Or even, Tullus wondered, should he push on past these beaten legionaries, away from his allotted position, to where the legion’s eagle was? It was vital that the golden standard not be lost – and his men might make the difference in retaining it. That bitter realisation drove Tullus to throw caution – and army regulations – to the wind.

Ordering the First’s soldiers to do their best, he rallied his men – three fewer than he’d led in – and took them back to their own unit. Fenestela greeted him with unbridled relief. ‘We didn’t break, sir, but it was close. We won’t be able to hold on for much longer.’

‘If we stay here, we’ll be raven food by sunset,’ agreed Tullus. He pointed. ‘Look over there.’ He’d spotted an area of dry ground to their right, parallel to the track, increasing the distance between them and the boggy area. Fenestela took one look and also saw the chance it granted. Without further ado, Tullus led his soldiers on to it, around the still unmoving First Cohort. There were unhappy glances from its legionaries, and even a shout from an optio that they shouldn’t be changing formation without direct orders from Varus, but Tullus paid not a blind bit of notice.

Judging where the First’s centre was proved to be difficult, as the cohort had lost its usual formation. Approximating as best he could, Tullus returned to the path after a few hundred paces. The niggle of unease he’d felt about the eagle now became open disquiet. The casualties here had been horrendous. Legionaries were sprawled everywhere, dead, wounded, somewhere in between. The unit’s ranks were so full of gaps that they resembled an old fishing net that had never been repaired.

Not every centurion had been killed, however, and there were also standard-bearers dotted throughout the unit’s soldiers. What worried Tullus was that they were
signiferi
, the men who carried centuries’ standards. There was no sign – anywhere – of the
aquilifer
, and the eagle he carried.

‘Where’s the eagle?’ Tullus roared at an optio who was tending to the wounded.

The optio looked up. The grief and shame on his face, and the streaks that tears had left on his cheeks, revealed everything. ‘It’s gone, sir. Lost.’

‘
What?
’ Tullus seized the optio’s arm, shoved his face into the other man’s. ‘
How?
’

‘There were too many of them, sir. They went straight for the eagle – twenty berserkers, at least. Our centurions did their best, they shoved us forward, sideways, every way they could to protect it. Three of them died, maybe more, defending it. Scores of ordinary soldiers too. I’m one of the only
optiones
left.’ The man hung his head. ‘I should have died – would have done, if I hadn’t been knocked out for a time.’

Numb, reeling, Tullus left the optio to his misery. Ordering his own cohort to regroup, he went in search of a more senior officer, hoping against hope that they would rebut what the optio had told him. The eagle’s loss was almost incomprehensible. Men would do anything – die, take a disabling wound, lose a limb – to prevent such an iconic symbol falling into enemy hands. Tullus would have done the same. He couldn’t remember the last time a legion had lost an eagle. The optio had been mistaken, he told himself.

Ignoring the nearby legionaries’ dejected, beaten expressions, his fantasy lasted until he came across Centurion Fabricius, of the Second Century – whom he knew – an officious type at the best of times. Now, though, Fabricius looked like a man whose family has just been butchered before him: dead-eyed, with a sickly grey complexion. He gave Tullus a puzzled look. ‘You’re not with the First.’

‘No. I’m Tullus. Senior centurion, Second Cohort.’

‘Ah.’ Fabricius’ disinterested gaze fell, and he picked at the hilt of his sword with bloodied fingernails.

‘Is it true?’ demanded Tullus. ‘Has the eagle been lost?’

There was no reply.

‘Answer me!’ shouted Tullus, uncaring that Fabricius outranked him.

‘Aye. It’s true,’ muttered Fabricius, unable to meet his eyes.

‘I brought my men forward as fast as I could. We would have – I meant to—’ Tullus stopped. Empty words and hollow promises would not magic the eagle back. He glanced at the earthworks, and the clamouring warriors atop it. ‘They took it back there?’

‘Yes.’

‘How long ago?’

‘I-I don’t know. Not long since.’

Tullus’ mind raced. If he gathered all of his men, and the soldiers around him, could they sweep forward and cross the enemy fortifications? Could they recover the eagle? He studied the nearest legionaries, and his hopes burned to a white ash. Everyone he could see looked exhausted. His own troops weren’t in a much better state. Such men couldn’t storm a higher position – against superior numbers – and expect to win, let alone take back a prize that would be defended to the bitter end. You bastard, Arminius, he thought. You filthy, scheming bastard.

Tullus had never felt so bitter. Never been so ashamed. It was immaterial that he had not been present when the eagle had been seized: it belonged to the Eighteenth. His legion – the unit to which he had given fifteen years of his life. Their humiliation was all the greater because the Seventeenth and the Nineteenth still retained theirs. If they escaped this living hell, it would be the death of the Eighteenth. Legions without eagles were disbanded.

In that moment, Tullus’ despair threatened to overwhelm him. He longed to lie down in the mud and let the world fall to ruin.

One thing prevented him. His men.

He could not go to Hades knowing that he’d abandoned them. He had to keep his cohort moving. To stay was to die.

‘The gods be with you,’ he said to Fabricius.

Disbelief flitted across Fabricius’ face – then it was anger. ‘Where are you going?’

‘Back to my cohort.’

‘What about the eagle?’ demanded Fabricius. ‘It has to be recaptured!’

Shame scourged Tullus anew, not least because there was nothing to be done. ‘It’s thanks to the incompetence of you and your fellow officers that it was lost in the first place,’ he snarled.

Fabricius spat into the mud. ‘Varus will hear of this.’

‘I’ll tell him what I did myself,’ Tullus retorted. ‘He can be the judge of who did the right thing. It won’t be you, you fool. Mark my words: stay here, and you will
all
die. We can’t fight these whoresons, at least not the way we’d want. Our best chance – our only chance – is to keep marching.’

He walked away, ignoring Fabricius’ orders to stand his ground. Gods grant that he comes to his senses before it’s too late, Tullus thought, putting the fate of the First – and the eagle – from his mind. In this calamitous situation, his cohort came first, and everyone and everything else came a distant second. Including Varus. Especially Varus. I told him, Tullus remembered, a throbbing fury pulsing behind his eyes. If only he’d listened. But Varus hadn’t, and here they were, with hundreds of men dead and an eagle lost – and that was just among the ranks of the Eighteenth. Who knew what was happening to the rest of the army?

A short distance along the path, Tullus was presented in gory fashion with the fate of the senior officers and their escort. Whether it was because the enemy had noticed the number of officers together – legates, tribunes and auxiliary prefects – or the fact that they were only protected by a single cohort, he didn’t know, but the attack here appeared to have been made with even more force than that directed against his soldiers. In the carnage upwards of two hundred legionaries lay slaughtered, and among
them
Tullus counted four tribunes, two prefects and a number of centurions. It was a relief to see no legates among the dead, and to note that the senior officers who had survived had not lingered.

He eyed the enemy’s earthworks with renewed respect.

It was as if the tribesmen saw him looking. A rendition of the barritus began, and a number of warriors emerged from the nearest gaps in the fortification to hurl abuse towards the path. Some even dropped their trousers in order to wave their genitalia at the Romans. On another day, Tullus would have found a wisecrack to shout back. Instead, he watched the taunting men in grim silence. With their confidence running this high, it wouldn’t be long before they attacked again.

How Tullus wished that he had the legion’s artillery to call on. Behind the earthworks, the enemy would be packed as tight as a shoal of fish in a net. A sustained barrage from ballistae would cause heavy casualties, and force them out from their defences, whereupon the legionaries would be able to slaughter them. Arminius had foreseen this, however, by tricking the legions on to this narrow, godsforsaken path upon which wagons and artillery could not travel. The result meant that, despite being less than fifty paces away, the tribesmen were invulnerable.

Tullus hadn’t trudged much further when cheering broke out among the enemy. He peered, making out a familiar broad-shouldered figure in fine armour, surrounded by a group of excited warriors. It was Arminius, Tullus felt sure of it. Hearing Arminius’ voice a few heartbeats later was the final proof that his suspicions all along had been correct. That sour realisation, although expected, was hard to take.

It was far worse, however, to see his legion’s eagle being brandished aloft beside Arminius. It glinted in the weak rays of afternoon sunshine, mocking the Eighteenth’s failure. Tullus’ fury was such that his vision blurred for a moment. When it cleared, the eagle had been taken behind the enemy fortification, driving the reality of the loss even further home.