Drusus stood in the midst of the bustle, watching with pleasure as the camp swiftly came together. Workmen swarmed everywhere. The expedition was well equipped: Saturninus had poured a fortune into it, an amount equal to the total annual revenue of several provinces, so they said. Brawny loggers quickly chopped down dozens of the palm trees that fringed the beach and the carpenters got busy squaring the lumber off to use in constructing the palisades. The surveyors laid out boundaries for the camp along the beach’s widest part and marked guidelines for its interior: the central street, the place where the legate’s tent would go, the tents of the craftsmen, of the legionaries, of the scribes and recorders, the site of the stables, the workshops, the granary, and all the rest. The horses had to be brought ashore also and given an opportunity to regain their land legs after their long confinement aboard the ships.
As the guide stakes went into the ground, the infantrymen set about erecting the rows of leather tents where they would dwell. Foragers, accompanied by an armed force, made the first ventures inland to find sources of food and water.
These were experienced men. Everyone knew his job. By nightfall, which came on surprisingly early—but this was winter, after all, Drusus reflected, warm though the climate was—the outline of the camp was clearly delineated and the beginnings of a rampart had risen. There did not seem to be any rivers or streams nearby, but, as Drusus had suspected from the presence of so dense a forest, fresh water was readily obtainable even so: the ground, which was exceedingly stony beneath its shallow covering of soil, was honeycombed everywhere with passageways through which underground water came welling up. One of these wells lay not far inland, and a team of engineers started to sketch out the route of a shallow canal that would carry its cool, sweet water the short distance to the camp. The foragers had also found abundant wildlife in the adjacent forest: a multitude of small and apparently fearless deer, herds of what seemed to be little pigs of a kind that had no tails and stiff upright ears, and vast numbers of large, very odd-looking birds with brilliant reddish-green plumage and great fleshy wattles at their throats. So far, so good. The Norseman had said they would have no difficulties finding provisions, and it looked as though he had told the truth about that.
At midday Drusus sent a runner down the beach toward the central camp to bear news of his landing. The man returned a little before sundown with word from the Consul Lucius Aemilius Capito that the main body of men had come ashore as well, and the work of building a camp was under way. To the south, Masurius Titianus had also effected his landing without encountering opposition from the natives.
The first night in the camp was a tense one, but first nights in camp in an unfamiliar place always were. Evening dropped over them like a shroud, with scarcely any interval between sunset and darkness. There was no moon. The stars above the camp were unusually brilliant, but they were arranged in the strange, unsettling configuration of the southern latitudes. The heat of the day did not abate, and the men in the tents complained of the stifling atmosphere inside. Raucous screeching cries came from the forest. Birds? Monkeys? Who could say? At least they didn’t sound like tigers. Clouds of mosquitoes appeared, pretty much similar to those of the Old World, but the humming noise that they made as they swooped in upon one was much nastier, almost jubilant in its intensity, and their stings were maddeningly fierce. At one point Drusus thought he saw a flight of bats passing close overhead. He loathed bats with a powerful loathing that he did not at all understand. Perhaps they are not bats but only owls, he thought. Or some new kind of eagle that flies by night.
Because the camp did not yet have a proper rampart, Drusus tripled the ordinary watch. He spent much of his night strolling among the sentries himself. They were uneasy and would appreciate his presence. They too had heard those tales of arrows whistling out of nowhere, and it heartened them to have their commander sharing their risks on this first and most uncertain of nights.
But the night passed without incident. In the morning, as work on the palisade resumed, Drusus summoned Marcus Junianus, who was serving as his prefect of the camp, and ordered him to begin assembling the scouting party that would attempt to find the location of the nearest Mexican village. Junianus saluted smartly and hurried off.
Later in the day Drusus sent for him again, on another matter. A long while went by; and then the messenger returned with the news that Junianus was not in the camp.
“Not in the camp?” said Drusus, puzzled.
“No, sir. I am told that you sent him out on a scouting mission this morning, sir.”
Drusus stared. Anger rose in him like a fountain, and it was all he could do to keep from striking the man. But that would be stupidly misdirected anger, he knew. Marcus was the one at fault, not the messenger. He had never given Marcus any order to go out scouting, just to get a team of scouts together. With the rampart only half finished, it was much too soon to dispatch scouts: the last thing Drusus wanted now was to alert the natives prematurely to their presence, which could easily happen if the scouts stumbled incautiously into one of their villages. And in any case he had never had any intention of sending Marcus himself out with those scouts. Scouts were expendable; Marcus was not.
He realized that this was something he should have foreseen. Marcus, now that he was a freedman, was forever trying to demonstrate his civic valor. More than once he had put himself needlessly in danger when he and Drusus were serving on border patrol in Africa. Sometimes one had to take deliberate risks, yes—Drusus himself, standing watch with his men this night past, had done just that. But there were necessary risks and there were foolish ones. The thought of Marcus blithely misunderstanding his intent so that he could lead the scouting party in person was infuriating.
There was nothing that could be done about it now, though. He would have to take it up with Marcus when the scouting party returned, and forbid him to place himself at risk again.
The problem was that the day passed, and sundown came and deepened swiftly into black night, and the scouts did not return.
Drusus had had no discussion with Marcus about the length of time the scouting mission was supposed to stay out. He had never had it in mind himself to ask the scouts to remain out overnight, not the very first night; but what Marcus had had in mind, Jupiter alone could say. Maybe he planned to keep going until he found something worth finding.
Morning came. No Junianus. At midday, deeply exasperated and more than a little apprehensive, Drusus sent a second band of scouts off to look for the first ones, telling them that under no circumstances were they to remain out after dark. But they returned in less than three hours, and the instant Drusus saw the look on the face of their captain, a Thracian named Rufus Trogus, he knew there was trouble.
“They have been captured, sir,” said Trogus without any preamble whatever.
Drusus worked hard to conceal his dismay. “Where? By whom?”
The Thracian told the story quickly and concisely. A thousand paces inland due west and two hundred paces to the north they had come upon signs of a struggle, broken branches, scuffed soil, a fallen scabbard, a javelin, a sandal. They were able to follow a trail of disturbed undergrowth for another hundred paces or so westward; then the forest closed over itself and there was no further sign of human presence, not so much as a bent twig. It was as though the attackers, having surprised and very quickly overcome the scouting party, had in short order melted into the air, and their prisoners also.