Tullus’ voice broke the silence, giving the legionaries something to do. ‘Ease forward, careful like. Pick up your helmets and any javelins that you can, then back to where you were.’
As Piso and his comrades started to obey, a fearful humming began. It rose from the mouths of hundreds of hidden warriors on either side, a deep buzzing sound that made the skin crawl.
Huuuummmmmmmm! Huuuummmmmmmm ! On and on it went, until every hair on the back of Piso’s neck stood up. The terrifying sound ebbed and flowed, growing louder and louder each time, as the waves of a rising tide smash with growing intensity off a cliff. At length, it became a deep-throated roar, a swelling shout that even threatened to drown out the sounds of the injured legionaries and the mules.
Huuuummmmmmmm! Huuuummmmmmmm !
Piso grabbed his helmet, and a javelin, and shot back to where he’d been standing. His comrades were close behind him.
The noise continued unabated for what seemed like an eternity. Just when Piso thought it could get no worse, the singing warriors began to clatter their weapons off the iron rims and bosses of their shields. Clash! Clash! Clash ! The metallic banging melded with their war cry in terrifying unison.
Huuuummmmmmmm! Huuuummmmmmmm! Clash! Clash! Clash !
Piso felt an overwhelming need to shit, and he clenched his buttocks tight. Beside him, he heard a man vomit. The tang of fresh piss reached his nostrils a moment later. Wails of fear were rising from elsewhere, and the line of legionaries began to waver.
‘If we break, we’re fucked,’ hissed Afer. ‘Stay where you are.’
Grateful to be told what to do, Piso obeyed. The legionary three men along hadn’t heard, however, or was too scared to listen. He stepped out of line, naked terror contorting his face. ‘They’ll kill us all!’
Tullus was on him like a snake coming up out of a burrow on an unsuspecting mouse. Crack! His vitis struck the soldier in a flurry of blows – against his helmet, twice, on his chest, over his shoulders. For good measure, Tullus delivered a whack across the face that raised a massive red weal on the man’s cheek. ‘GET BACK, YOU FUCKING MAGGOT!’ he roared. ‘INTO LINE, BEFORE I GUT YOU MYSELF!’
Cowed, shame-faced, the legionary retreated. Tullus gave him a withering look before his eyes, stony cold, raked the rest of the soldiers. Few dared meet his gaze. As if the enemy wanted to listen to Tullus, the chanting and hammering of weapons died away. ‘That was their war cry, you useless shower of limp-pricks!’ yelled Tullus. ‘It’s called the barritus, in case you didn’t know. Yes, it’s bloodcurdling. Yes, it’s terrifying. Yes, you think you’re going to die when you hear it.’ Tullus stalked fast along the line, eyeballing them in turn. ‘SO FUCKING WHAT? YOU ARE SOLDIERS OF ROME! OF FUCKING ROME! WHAT DO YOU CARE FOR THE SCREECHING OF A HORDE OF STINKING BARBARIANS? EH? EH?’
‘Nothing, sir,’ shouted Afer.
Tullus bounded back to stand in front of Afer. ‘What’s that? I can’t hear you!’
‘NOTHING, SIR. I DON’T GIVE A SHIT, SIR.’
A pitiless smile split Tullus’ face. ‘That’s right. We don’t give a SHIT about them and their fucking war cry, do we? DO WE?’
‘NO, SIR!’ Piso and the rest roared at him.
Tullus had a shield in one fist now, and a sword in the other. With fierce intensity, he began to beat the blade off the iron rim. At the same time, he chanted, ‘ROMA! ROMA! ROMA!’
The legionaries copied him. A little further down the line, Piso heard Fenestela take up the cry, and encourage his men to do the same. Every time the sound was repeated, the soldiers’ fear leached away a little, to be replaced if not by courage, then by resolve. When Tullus was content that they had steadied, he ceased his hammering. Piso and his comrades did the same, muttering encouragements to each other, things like, ‘We’ll show the bastards what for.’ ‘Let them come!’ ‘Dirty savages!’
‘Ready, my brothers,’ said Tullus, from his new position in the centre of the line, facing to the right of the road. ‘They might still charge.’
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Nothing happened. There was no barrage of spears and stones. The Germans’ barritus was not sung again, nor were their shields battered with weapons. The legionaries began to share uncertain looks. If their attackers had not vanished, what in Hades were they doing?
Again Tullus stepped into the breach. ‘This is all part of the whoresons’ plan. They’ve gone, for now. Starting with you’ – and he pointed at the first legionary in the line – ‘every second man is to remain in position. Every other man is to break rank, and see to the injured. Move!’
Piso left the defensive formation with reluctance, but his attention was soon taken up by his injured comrades, many of whom were in urgent need of care. The luckier ones, with bruised ribs and limbs from slingshots, or flesh wounds from spears that had struck glancing blows, were able to look after themselves. Supervised by a prowling Tullus, and directed by a lone orderly who’d appeared, Piso and his comrades made the casualties as comfortable as was possible in the wet, dirty conditions. It was clear that some men would not make it, and Piso grew used to seeing the orderly giving them long pulls from his flask of poppy juice. His mind was quick to turn from the fate of the wounded to his own, and his comrades’. Their attackers, whoever they were, had gone, but they might well return. The army was yet at a standstill. Fresh fear licked at Piso’s spine. They were like a shoal of fish, left by the ebbing tide in a tiny rock pooclass="underline" easy prey.
‘What are we going to do, sir?’ he asked the next time Tullus came striding by.
‘We’re waiting for orders,’ replied Tullus. A shadow flickered across his face. ‘We’ll be told to get moving, and find a place to camp. Making plans about what to do will be easier behind fortifications.’
Afer joined in. ‘Was it the Angrivarii who attacked us, sir?’
The darkness passed again over Tullus’ face, but Piso still had no idea what was going through his centurion’s mind. ‘That’s what many will say,’ said Tullus. He walked off. ‘Be ready to move at a moment’s notice.’
Piso eyed Afer. ‘What’s up with him?’
‘No bloody idea. What matters is that he’s here, eh?’
‘Aye,’ replied Piso with feeling. Rumours had reached them from down the column of heavy casualties among other units, of dead centurions, foundered wagons and widespread panic among the non-combatants. Whatever they had suffered here was mild by comparison, and it was attributable in the main to Tullus. ‘May the gods keep him safe.’
‘I’ll second that,’ said Vitellius, raising his eyes to the grey, cloud-covered heavens.
If the gods heard their prayers, they were not interested. Heavy rain began to fall once more, pouring down on their upturned faces in torrents and increasing the already deep gloom. Lightning flashed deep within the clouds, once, twice, thrice. A few heartbeats later, there was an ominous rumble of thunder.
It was hard not to think that Jupiter was angry with them, thought Piso, seeing his own unspoken disquiet mirrored in his friends’ faces.
Piso had not thought his dislike of the forest could escalate, but in the sodden, bloody hours that followed, he grew to loathe it with every fibre of his being. It became the limits of the Romans’ world. Dense, green, dripping with moisture, it appeared to go on forever, mile upon mile of beeches, hornbeams, oaks and trees Piso didn’t even recognise. Tall ones, shorter ones, thick-trunked and thin-, gnarled, diseased, aged and saplings, they stood side by side, in disapproving legions of their own, sentinels at the entrance to another world. At times, it seemed to Piso that they were watching the sweating, tired legionaries. That was a most uncomfortable feeling, inviting thoughts of malign forest spirits, druids and blood sacrifice.