I shot to my feet as I heard men enter the block.
‘Brando.’ I was so happy to see his face and its promised distraction from the poison of my thoughts. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Duty up on the northern wall. Centurion H told us to let you sleep.’
‘Anything happening?’
‘Nothing since the three executions. Centurion H thinks Arminius was using it as a chance to get a look at our numbers, and sneak in a little closer.’
H was probably right. Armed with the knowledge extracted from his prisoners, Arminius would now have a detailed picture of what stood in front of him.
‘We’ve got three more for the section,’ Stumps told me as he came in and clambered up on to his bunk. ‘They’ve gone to get their possessions.’
The trio arrived soon after. Centurion H appeared with them.
‘Felix,’ he greeted me cheerfully. ‘How are the legs? Went a bit wobbly on you, did they? I do tend to have that effect on people.’
I couldn’t help but smile at the man’s easy manner.
‘I’ve got some new lads from the hospital to join you. They’re all Nineteenth Legion. I’ll leave you to get on. Whole century will form up at dusk, full armour. We’re a reserve in case they try anything at dusk, and then we’ve got night duties. Sound good?’
‘All good, sir.’
‘Great. I’ll leave you to it then.’
I heard the sound of arms and armour being shed in the storage partition of the block, and then the first of the men appeared. He was tall, friendly looking, and stammered like a man pulled out of a frozen lake.
‘Ba-ba-ba-balbus,’ he greeted me.
‘You sound like a fucking sheep,’ Stumps snorted from his bed. ‘The Batavians will be trying to crawl into your arse.’
The newcomer and the German-born pair laughed. Clearly Stumps had already used the insult that day. It was a tired joke, but I smiled to see my friend’s mind active, if only to create barbs.
‘Take a bunk,’ I told the soldier; then: ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the second head through the doorway.
‘Dog, sir,’ the man replied.
I didn’t need to ask why. His breath hit me like a battering ram. The source of the stench was his rotting gums. Two teeth perched in the meat like dirty fingernails. Dog Breath, a common name throughout all legions.
‘Twisted my ankle, I did, sir,’ Dog explained the reason for his time at the hospital, his words wet.
‘Take a bunk,’ I told him, glad that there was not one available alongside mine. Truly, the man’s smell was more pungent than the rotting dead beyond the wall. ‘And you don’t call me sir,’ I added.
‘That’s good then. Wasn’t planning on doing it,’ said the final man to appear. He was younger, and would have been handsome if his features hadn’t been decorated with the scars of disease. The arrogance of his words jabbed at me, and from years of experience in the legions, I knew how I must deal with that display of self-importance – with violence.
Instead, I put out my hand. There was enough fighting beyond the walls. ‘Felix.’
My hand was ignored.
‘Whose is that bed?’ the man asked instead. A flare of anger burst inside me, but I fought it down, and opened my mouth to talk.
But I was too late. Knuckles cracked into bone.
I looked down and saw the newcomer writhing on the floor, struggling to protect his head as kicks rained down.
They were not my own. Folcher and Brando beat the man as savagely as if he were the Germans who’d held them slave.
I let them be at first. The man had brought it upon himself. And yet… this was my section. I was the one that carried the burden of command and leadership. If you want to be a leader, you lead.
‘Enough!’ I thundered, and the two Batavians backed away instantly, their breathing heavy.
Finally convinced that the rain of kicks was over, the man slowly uncovered his head and looked up at me.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked him gently.
‘Statius.’
‘This is my section,’ I told him.
‘I understand,’ he whimpered.
‘Good.’
And then I brought the hobnails of my sandals down on to his face. This time, when my men began kicking, I did not stop them.
It was only the sound of a voice in the doorway that brought the violence to an end. A hard voice, steel dragged over gravel.
‘This looks familiar,’ it said.
I turned to look at the man in the doorway.
I turned to look at a ghost.
Titus.
19
The slab of a man filled the doorway, his rugged face drawn into a smile as he surveyed the bloodied soldier that lay moaning at my feet.
Titus.
What did I expect had happened to the man who had commanded our section through the battle of the forest? Either that he was dead with the others, or rich beyond its reach. Rich with the legion’s pay chests that he and I had found as battle disintegrated into massacre. Clear of the fighting and in the trees, I had made the choice to turn my back on the riches, and to instead seek out my surrounded comrades, and death. Titus had chosen life, and had melted into the forest with the pay chests. Both of our roads had led here.
‘Fuck,’ I swore softly. How else could I express the hundreds of thoughts and words that now bounced inside my skull?
Titus looked up to one of the bunks. Stumps was staring at his old friend with wide eyes and open mouth. He seemed paralysed.
‘I’d shut that hole before the Syrians put something in it.’ Titus smiled. ‘Are you gonna come down here or not?’
Stumps did. As he embraced his friend, tears rolled over his cheeks. I thought I caught the sight of them in Titus’s eyes, too.
‘Everyone else out,’ I ordered. This was a moment for our old section. For the men who had stood beside each other in the forest.
Brando and Folcher understood. They grabbed Statius’s limp form and dragged him from the room by his ankles. The others fell in behind them.
‘Not you,’ I said, grabbing Micon. ‘You’re a part of this.’
Stumps and Titus finally broke their embrace. Stumps made to speak, but only doubled over in tears. He buried his face in his friend’s thick chest. Micon watched, his face blank.
‘Still the brains of the unit, are you?’ Titus grunted at the lad. ‘But I’m glad you’re alive,’ he added with warmth.
‘Thanks,’ Micon muttered. He was out of his depth, and shuffled back into the room’s corner.
‘We thought you were dead,’ Stumps finally managed.
Titus shrugged. ‘We all thought we were all dead.’
He turned his eyes to me, then: ‘I can’t decide if you’re the luckiest or unluckiest bloke I’ve ever met. You make a habit of falling from one death trap into another, but then you’re harder to kill than a fucking cockroach.’
‘Uglier, though,’ Stumps chimed in, now conscious of his tears.
‘How the fuck did you get here?’ Titus asked us.
And so we told him.
Titus sat on the opposite bed to mine and listened patiently as I told him about our short time as prisoners. I left out my reckoning with Arminius, and how the German had revealed that I was more than just a simple deserter from the Eighth Legion, beginning instead with how I had found Stumps when the army had surrendered.
Once I had finished the story of our escape, Titus asked if we knew the fate of our comrade Moonface, or Centurion Pavo.