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.