But if they were already on it…
‘Seven Section! On me! On me!’
Through the darkness the shapes of my section appeared. The fighting step was deep enough for two men to overlap their shields and advance, and Brando fought to be the one alongside me as we pushed towards the sound of ringing blades.
We were too late to save the last legionary standing. He went down with a spear in his guts, and joined two of his comrades and a few of the enemy on their backs. A dozen of the tribesmen were on the rampart, some calling down to their comrades, frantically gesturing for ladders and reinforcement.
‘Wait for the archers!’ Statius shouted from behind me. ‘We can pick them off!’
He was right – the Germans were exposed – but then I saw the head of another ladder thump against the wood. There was no time to wait.
‘Javelins!’ I shouted. ‘Javelins! Loose!’ At the order, the men at the rear of the section dropped back to gain space, and hurled their shafts ahead. One sailed over the wall. The second dug into a thigh. The German howled, and we advanced.
There were only ten yards to cover. Ten yards where I pulled my shield tight to me as if it were my long-lost child, and dipped my head so that my world was reduced to the slit between shield and helmet brim.
‘Second rank, shields up!’ No sooner had I called the order than a throwing axe dug into the shield held above me.
I watched the Germans now, seeing them jockey for position and honour. None had become the first on to this wall because they were cowards, but the sight of an advancing tide of shields gave them pause; how to attack a formation where the only break in cover revealed the pointed blades of short swords?
Faced with the challenge, the tribesmen did what they knew best.
They charged.
‘Brace!’ I called, grinding my hobnails into the wooden planks.
The warriors hit our shields a second later. The force of it jerked me back and sent a shock of pain along my shield arm, but our formation held firm. I pulled my sword arm back, freeing it from a man who had punctured himself on the steel by his reckless momentum.
Through the narrow slit between my own shield and the one held above me, I saw bearded faces screaming and biting. Spit and blood flecked my face. Fist and axe hammered against shield and my head in the savage drum of battle. The enemy were vicious, brave and ferocious, but they could not break apart our shields.
Beside me Brando screamed oaths, his sword arm sawing in and out, back and forth. My own blade bit flesh, hot blood shooting from a German mouth and on to my neck.
‘Push!’ I shouted at the men behind me. ‘Push!’
It was a wrestling match now, our shields against theirs, and as our short swords punctured the stomachs of their leading warriors, there could be only one result.
They broke. They ran from us, seeking their escape over the wall.
‘Break formation,’ I managed, panting.
I looked left and right along the wall, which was now well lit by torches. Below us, civilians raced to replace the flames and stockpiles of stones. Archers sought out targets beyond the rampart, but our stretch of the fighting step was clear. Clear, but not out of danger; the sound of battle still echoed from the far side of the fort.
Centurion H came running towards me. He ignored the leaking bodies at his feet. ‘Re-form your section on this stretch. They’re attacking in force on the west side, but they could come back up here. I’m sending half of these archers back inside the fort as a reserve. The rest will space themselves out.’
A nod was enough to acknowledge the orders, and then H was away to see to his other sections.
‘Are they all dead?’ I asked Brando. The Batavian was busily checking the German bodies and pocketing their coins.
‘They’re dead,’ he replied, spitting at one.
‘Put them over the side when you’re done.’
Folcher and Balbus came forward to help the big Batavian lift the bodies over the battlements, dropping them into the ditch below. The final ‘corpse’ gave a cry of pain as he landed in the darkness.
Brando smiled at me. ‘Dead enough.’
Folcher grinned, and then cocked his head. ‘The fight is smaller,’ he said. Sure enough, in the west, the clash of arms and cries of pain were growing quieter.
‘Look to your front,’ I ordered my comrades, expecting another attempt.
It came soon enough, but this time, with torches on the walls and archers on the fighting step, the assault died before it had even reached the ditch. The tribesmen knew that they had blown their chance, and so, as the first shafts punctured flesh, the warriors turned and ran. Syrian, Latin and German taunts followed them.
‘What did you say to them?’ Dog asked Folcher after one particularly long and breathless barrage.
‘That I will rape and eat their mother, then feed my shit to their children.’
‘Fuck me.’ Stumps whistled. ‘If soldiering doesn’t work out for you, there’s always poetry.’
We waited on the battlements until dawn had come and gone. Centurion H was an astute and caring officer, and sent civilians up and down the line with water and soup.
‘Where’s the wine, sir?’ Stumps had asked.
‘Wine’s for winners. You can have some when all the hairies are dead.’
As well as bringing refreshments to the fighting men, the civilians also took away the dead.
I had seen a half-dozen of our own fallen carried away. Dozens of enemy bodies had been piled in the ditch and on the rampart. When Centurion H returned to speak with me, the grief for the loss of his men was beginning to sink in. His eyes were a little narrower. The angle of his chin had dropped.
‘I hate this job sometimes,’ he confided in me. ‘West side got it worse though. Took Malchus and his reserves to keep them from the gatehouse. Lost a dozen dead and nearly double that with injuries.’
‘We can’t keep this up every night,’ I said, and H nodded in agreement.
‘But can Arminius?’
I had no answer for him. Only the German prince knew what he was willing to sacrifice to take the fort. Until he showed his hand there was nothing we could do but stand on its walls, and wait for death.
21
Dawn arrived, bringing with it the sight of dark red stains on the fighting steps. Balbus found a severed hand and tossed it casually into the ditch. On another day, perhaps the men would have found some humour or joke in the body part, but, drained by the night’s cold and the enemy attacks, conversation was stilted, the men withdrawing into themselves as they looked out over the battlements with sunken eyes.
There was not much comfort to take from the view of our vantage point. We had beaten back the assault, but Arminius’s host hung over the fields and gentle hills like a curse.
I stared at the gathering of tribes, wondering where Arminius himself was. What was the prince thinking? What was he planning? In a moment of self-importance, I even wondered if I featured in his thoughts.
I doubted that. His was a mind of singular vision and, having failed to live up to my part in it, I was certain I would have been cut out and cast aside like rotten flesh.
I turned and looked down into the fort itself. Preparing for a dawn assault, Caedicius had the whole of the garrison stood to and ready to fight. Many of these men were held back in reserve so that they could be directed to the point of attack, and so my section was once again spread thinly on the wall, a dozen Syrian archers split down into pairs as our support.