‘We’re not in any rush to get there,’ H told us as we let our eyes adjust to the darkness. ‘Priority is to get the runners clear to the Rhine. Once that’s done we’ll lie up, and start working out the goat-fuckers’ positions and routines.
‘Any final questions?’ H asked. Once we left the gate, we would only speak when strictly necessary.
‘Don’t you mean last words?’ One of the runners grinned, keen to show indifference towards the danger that lay ahead.
We chuckled darkly at the joke. That was the soldier’s way.
H turned to the men of the guard. ‘Open the gate.’
Without armour and shield we moved quietly through the night. The air was cold but not vicious, and I felt beads of sweat trickle down my lower spine. I had a blanket rolled and looped over one shoulder and down to my waist, and alongside that rested a bundled pack of drinking-skins and rations. There was little weight to either – we would be returning to the fort in a fortnight, or we would be the ones providing meals to nature’s creatures.
It was a still night, and the moon was low and shrouded. We knew that Arminius had scouts watching the fort, but we didn’t fear them. The land surrounding Aliso was vast and the number of enemies in close proximity few. Should we happen to stumble upon them, then the more pious amongst us would take that as a message from the gods that the mission was doomed to fail from the start.
My own thoughts on a chance meeting were a little different. If we found the enemy then we could steal their mounts. As far as our reconnaissance was concerned, it wouldn’t be helpful to announce our presence thus, but the beasts could carry the runners to the Rhine more quickly than their feet. However, before leaving the gate, H had been fast to veto my suggestion of hunting the enemy scouts for such a purpose.
‘If we unsheathe our blades, something’s gone wrong,’ he told me. ‘Don’t be in such a hurry, Felix,’ he added, sensing something in my nervous energy. ‘There’ll be killing to do if we’re ever to reach the Rhine.’
He was right about that, of course. He was also right that I wanted to draw blood, I then realized. I wanted to fight. I wanted to lose myself in that chaos. That savagery.
There was nothing savage about the way we crossed fields and woodland. Our approach was calm and methodical. H led from the front, and we followed in a loose single file. I brought up the rear, pausing often to watch and listen that we were not being tracked.
There was no need or room for words. We took our lead from our centurion: walking where he did; stopping when he did. There was little of this, as we aimed to cover twelve miles in the darkness. The Roman soldier marches at four miles an hour with full equipment, and is expected to cover twenty miles a day in such conditions. Though unburdened, we were required by stealth and terrain to moderate our pace, and so pauses in our advance west were limited to the time it took to piss, and to draw a few gulps of water from our skins.
The spectre of dawn was threatening the sky when H broke from a farmer’s trail and led us towards the darkness that promised the refuge of trees. We found what we wanted there, and so we set about building our hide. Fallen branches formed the support for blankets. Each had thin rope stitched into the corners, and we used pegs to stretch the material tight, as we would a tent. We then covered this structure with the decaying leaves that autumn had left thick on the woodland floor.
‘Everyone inside,’ H whispered. ‘Get some rest. I’ll take first watch, and check the hide and position once it gets lighter.’
With the others, I slithered inside our temporary home. Titus struggled to enter without shaking leaves free, and I knew that the big man would be cursing inside his head. There was little room for personal space, nor did we want it – following our labour, sweat was now growing cold. Our collective body heat beneath the blankets was our best defence against the German chill.
We were not out of danger, but we no longer had to have our senses on high alert, and so thoughts that I wished left in the fort began to fight to be heard. I wanted none of them. Fortunately, the day and night had been long, and my emotions were as exhausted as my feet. I tucked my chin against my chest as Titus began to snore. It wasn’t long until I followed his example.
The daylight hours passed without incident. I was woken sometime in the afternoon by Titus, and took my turn at the opening of our hide, my eyes and ears tuned to the autumnal woodland and the shuffling of bronzed leaves, the dank of wet earth and mulch rich in my nostrils.
There was no escaping my mind as I lay beneath the trees. As the coming winter stripped the branches above me, so too were my thoughts laid bare.
I loved Linza. I loved her because she had told me to go and fuck myself. I loved her because she was scared, but she was defiant. I hadn’t understood it at the time, but after she had got so angry I had come to realize that she didn’t need me, but that she wanted me. I was as certain of that as I was that my misreading of her emotions had cost me my chance.
A chance at what? I chided myself. Had I forgotten where I was, and who? Even if I survived the reconnaissance of the German force, we would still need to slip by the enemy army eventually. Even the most optimistic soldier in the fort could not expect such a thing to happen smoothly. At some point, there would be bloodshed.
And what if we did survive? What if we did make it to the Rhine? What then? Since Linza had reminded me of the better part of my past – at least, until it had been taken from me – I had forgotten who I was, and fallen into the role of the soldier. The legionary. But the bases on the Rhine were not my final destination; Britain was. Would that change if I were with Linza? Would she love me once we were free of imminent death, and away from the compressed and chaotic world of siege? Would she come with me to Britain if she did?
I had a head and heart full of questions, but only one certainty – I knew that I had failed her.
Knowing that sleep would now evade me, I kept the watch until darkness was falling. Under its blanket we rolled away our own, and H led us westwards. We were like animals now, grunts and looks all that we needed to know our pack leader’s intention.
The ground was cold and hard, and so we made good distance on that second night. H and one of the runners had bands of beads threaded with cords, and these they used to measure our distance in the darkness. To achieve this they had walked a hundred yards within camp, counting the steps it took them to cover the distance. Now in enemy territory, they counted their steps and moved one bead for each hundred yards covered. It was a skill they had practised, and became an automatic rhythm that was as natural as breathing.
I had no beads, but experience of my own had made me a good judge of time and distance. I estimated that we had made fifteen miles that night, putting us roughly halfway between Aliso and the Rhine.
Once more, H led us to a place beneath branches and shrouded by undergrowth. Once more we made our shelter and rested concealed in our hide. My time on watch was again one of questions without answers, and it was with relief that we began the third night’s march, and then the fourth.
It was that night that we reached our closest point to the Rhine. It was beyond our sight and hearing, but H estimated that we were within ten miles of the waters that separated the Empire from the enemy.
‘Make another few miles tonight,’ he whispered to the two runners. ‘Lie up, then cross tomorrow. Good luck.’
Titus and I added our own farewells through pats on the men’s shoulders. After leaving what rations they had with us, they took their leave.