The camp hospital was a large, square building facing on to the via principalis and adjacent to the northern gate. It was typical of valetudinaria, consisting of a large entrance hall and two concentric sets of rooms set around a central courtyard, with a circulating corridor that ran between them. The passageway enabled staff and patients alike to move about without being exposed to the weather. Survival rates within for many diseases and ailments were good, but it wasn’t a place men liked to visit unless they had to. Piso had been twice for minor problems: conjunctivitis the first time, and a sprained wrist the next. He’d never before had occasion to visit a comrade, in particular one who had been injured in combat.
The unmistakeable tang of acetum, the disinfectant used by surgeons, hit his nostrils as he stepped inside the doorway. Piso quite liked it. The reception area was jammed with the casualties from the patrol. Groans rose from some of the worst cases, while others lay as if already dead. Poor bastards, thought Piso. Only the soldiers with minor injuries seemed pleased to have reached the place. Stretchers had been laid out in preparation, ready to carry the men within; the wounded were being assessed by teams of surgeons and orderlies. He cast his gaze over the room, but couldn’t see Vitellius anywhere. He watched, fascinated, as a surgeon he recognised stopped by a legionary with a thick bandage wrapped around one thigh. ‘You were with the patrol, soldier?’ asked the surgeon.
‘Aye, sir.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘A German spear, sir. I got knocked over by a warrior, and he ripped my shield to one side. I stuck him as he did. Even though he was dying, the dog still managed to stab me.’ The legionary winced as the surgeon probed at the bandage. ‘It bled like a bastard – sorry, sir – really badly. I was lucky that a comrade whipped a strip of leather around my leg, and tightened it with a piece of wood.’
‘What colour was the blood?’
‘Bright red, sir. It was pumping out.’
The surgeon’s face grew wary. ‘The artery must have been severed. When did the leather come off?’
‘Our medical orderly undid it after the fighting had ended, sir, to see if the bleeding started again. It did, damn quick, so he reapplied it. Every hour or so, he let the pressure off, to keep the leg from going dead, he said. It kept bleeding until that evening, but it’s been all right since.’
‘Any pain?’ The legionary pulled a face, and the surgeon rephrased his question, peering beneath the edges of the bandage, top and bottom. ‘Does it throb, like an infected finger might?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Good. There’s no discoloration of the skin that I can see. Best to leave the bandage on until tomorrow.’ The surgeon glanced at the orderly. ‘Have him carried to one of the minor-wounds wards. He’s to have poppy juice if he wishes, five drops, twice daily. Put him on the examinations list for the morning.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The surgeon moved on to the next case, and Piso clutched at the orderly’s arm as he passed. ‘A comrade of mine was taken here just now.’
‘Half the world has a mate in here,’ retorted the orderly, but he paused. ‘What kind of injury had he?’
‘A flesh wound, in the forearm.’
‘He’s lucky then. If you can’t spy him, wait until the stretcher-bearers pick up this man here, and follow them.’ He indicated the soldier whom the surgeon had just examined. ‘There are two wards for minor wounds. Like as not, you’ll find him in one of those.’
‘My thanks.’ When the stretcher-bearers arrived, Piso trailed his way after, along the hospital’s central corridor, down the building’s long side and around to the short side. Offices, storerooms and bedrooms for the medical staff lined the first section of the passageway, and were followed by two operating theatres, and wards for the most severe cases. If the cries of pain and the surgeon’s terse instructions to ‘Give him more poppy juice!’ and ‘Pass me the damn clamp, quickly!’ were anything to go by, dramatic, risky surgery was under way. His nostrils full of the smell of blood and piss, and images of the dead at the settlement, Piso didn’t linger.
The legionary with the leg wound was carried into the first minor-wounds ward, so Piso stuck his head into the second, a small dark chamber almost identical to a barrack room for eight men. All the bunks were occupied, but there was no sign of Vitellius, so he returned to the first chamber. He found his friend watching with a scowl as the leg-wound soldier was shifted on to a lower bunk – which, from the kit that lay on the floor beside it, looked to have been Vitellius’ until that moment.
‘There you are,’ said Piso, grinning.
‘I’d just got comfortable,’ replied Vitellius in a sour tone. ‘Trust me to choose the bed that someone else needs more than I do.’
‘You might have a bad arm,’ butted in one of the stretcher-bearers, ‘but this man has a wound that could start bleeding at any time. Do you want him exsanguinating over you from the top berth?’
‘Of course not,’ snapped Vitellius.
‘Gratitude, brother,’ said the leg-wound soldier, looking a little embarrassed.
Vitellius brushed it off with a wave of his good hand. He eyed Piso. ‘Come to check up on me?’
‘Aye, to see how you were.’ He raised the wine. ‘And to bring you this.’
Vitellius’ face cheered. ‘You’re a true comrade. We’ll have a drop right now.’
Piso scouted around for a cup, but could see none. He took a slug, and made a face. ‘Finest Sicilian, it is not. Never mind.’ He passed it to Vitellius, who poured a long draught down his neck without swallowing. ‘How’s the wound?’ asked Piso.
Vitellius lifted his injured right arm, which had a fresh linen bandage on it. ‘The surgeon said it must have been a damn sharp blade. Went straight in, straight out. It seems clean enough. He sluiced it with acetum twice – gods, but that stung like a bastard – and had it dressed. Two or three days, I’ll be here, he reckons, long enough to make sure it stays uncontaminated. After that, I can come back every few days to have it dressed. Not too bad, I guess.’
‘Aye, you were lucky.’ Piso thanked the gods again that he had not been part of the attack.
‘Where are the rest?’
‘In the baths.’
‘I could have guessed,’ said Vitellius, scowling. ‘I’m not to go there until my wound has healed, the surgeon says.’
‘A wise idea. Sweat, dirt, blood and massage oil aren’t the things to get in to a cut,’ Piso agreed, remembering a surgeon giving his father similar advice.
‘That’s not taking into account the bastards who piss in the baths!’ added the leg-wound soldier. ‘There’s always one of those.’
‘I can remember the day one of my tent mates shat in the caldarium,’ chipped in a legionary from another bunk. ‘Said he’d eaten some meat that had turned, but that didn’t stop us giving him a good kicking.’
Everyone laughed.
‘There’s quite a party air in here,’ boomed Tubero, sweeping in, a staff officer and a servant on his heels.
‘Sir!’ Everyone who could stand shot to attention. The leg-wound soldier and another saluted from their beds. ‘Sorry, sir, it’s difficult to get up,’ said one.
‘At ease, at ease. Injured men are allowed some leeway.’ Despite Tubero’s jocular manner, no one forgot his rank. They watched him with nervous eyes and fixed smiles as he paced to and fro, glancing at them. ‘Were any of you in the patrol that wiped out the Usipetes?’
It wasn’t surprising that a tribune didn’t recognise the men he’d just commanded, thought Piso, but it rankled just the same.
‘I was, sir,’ said Vitellius.