Those who did have the will to live, but simply not the strength to keep up, suffered the most. Unable to make it to the night's campsite with the main body of troops, they would spend the night foodless and fireless where darkness finally overtook them. It was rare that any of these men survived until morning. Small parties of the enemy were constantly following like vultures, picking off stragglers and robbing them of their pitiful belongings, carrying off disabled animals that we ourselves were not sufficiently quick to butcher for food, harassing us at every turn.
Men who had the fortitude to walk miles even after losing their toes to frostbite would be stricken down by an unexpected calamity: blindness by snow, which rendered them helpless, even when led by a kindly companion by a leash or belt, because the depth of the snow and roughness of the terrain made walking without vision impossible. Those astute enough to realize the problem improvised eye-shades, or simply marched holding a black object in front of their eyes, but it was too late for others. These men we saw kneeling piteously in the snow as we passed, their eyes swollen shut, fluid streaming from the corners, as they implored their comrades, who themselves could barely stand, to lead or carry them to safety.
Our feet were the worst problem, however. Good leather sandals, with heavy oxhide soles, will serve a man well in battle, even allowing him to tread through fire, but will last only a couple of months under marching conditions, even with nightly repairs, and the troops' footwear had long past outlived its usefulness. The absence of oxen and camp followers to tan the leather and manufacture the footwear meant that the men had to improvise their own, most often with the newly flayed hides of mules that had fallen by the wayside. These the troops would skin even without waiting for the pitiful animal to completely die, to gulp down the meat and blood while still warm, and obtain a precious supply of hide before the enemy or their other colleagues arrived. Unless it froze solid first, a dead mule would be stripped of everything within minutes, leaving the carrion birds nothing to pick at but bloody bones. At the next campsite the men would be seen diligently trading scraps of leather among themselves, improvising needles from bone and thread from sinew, making crude sandals from unscraped hide that had been the cover for living flesh only hours before. It was difficult to tell, looking at the men's feet, whether the blood that stained them red was from their own blisters and missing toes, or from the freshly flayed hides. Anyone who did not take care to make the straps much looser than he otherwise would have soon learned a painful lesson, as the fresh hides shrank at night when they dried, cutting deep into a man's numb flesh, then freezing solid if he stood still for more than a moment or two. More than one able-bodied man lost his life when his mule-hide sandals lamed him and forced him to stay behind, weeping in the snow.
Because of the harshness of the journey, the army was spread out for miles, making communications between the van and the rear guard difficult. One night, after fighting the north wind all day, Xenophon's troops arrived at the camp hours after dark, only to find that the earlier arrivals had gathered every bit of scarce firewood available, and refused to let our frozen soldiers near their fires unless bribed with wheat or any other eatables they might have. When I reported this to Xenophon, his tired face darkened in anger, and he marched furiously over to Chirisophus' fire to confront him.
"Chirisophus!" he sputtered, "My men arrive after yours because they were assigned to the rear guard, to cover your ass! Yet when they arrive they find no food or shelter, while your men are comfortable. Are we one army or two?"
Chirisophus looked up calmly from the hunk of dried meat he was gnawing, his irritation at being interrupted readily apparent. He deliberately allowed the smile on his face to fade slowly, and coolly met Xenophon's angry stare. "My men arrived and scavenged for firewood themselves," he said in measured tones. "They built shelters and made themselves comfortable. Yours can do the same. My men will be up and marching before dawn as the vanguard. Why don't you just let your poor tired boys sleep late in the morning, General?"
Xenophon stared at him in astonishment. "We don't have a vanguard and a rear guard," he said after a pause. "We have two separate armies. And since that is the case, I'll take your advice. I'll tell my troops to sleep late, and then join either army they wish, and if they all wish to join yours, I'll march alone." Chirisophus stopped chewing and looked up at Xenophon with frank interest.
"We'll give you a head start in the morning to be out of your way," he continued. "Naturally the Rhodian slingers will stick with me, as will the cavalry. All of Proxenus' old troops will stay as well, I imagine, both Thebans and Spartans. That would be fifteen hundred hoplites and five hundred light infantry. Since I took over Proxenus' command, I'll also keep his remaining supplies. Naturally I'd expect you to be fair and allow any Athenians and other Attics in your brigade to transfer to my army-I'd hate to see my countrymen marching under duress with Spartans."
Chirisophus' face reddened and his eyes bulged in anger. He stood up and faced Xenophon, their chests almost touching, though the leathery old soldier stood half a head shorter than his younger colleague. Xenophon did not flinch, but continued ticking off tasks like a shopping list:
"Perhaps the easiest thing to do would be to simply call a meeting of the joint forces, and allow everyone to walk over to whichever side they wish. I will, however, be happy to leave you with the sledges and wagons, Chirisophus, as well as any remaining camp followers that have sneaked along with the troops, to ensure your comfort…"
Chirisophus snorted in disgust and looked away. "By Zeus, General," he said resignedly, "can't you take a joke? I had no idea you were so sensitive about your men sleeping late." He sat down again by the fire and began poking at it sullenly. "Perhaps my men have been a bit too eager about settling in for the night after they arrive. I'll have a talk with them and order them to clear a space for your stragglers from now on. Try not to drag so far behind, though, will you?"
Xenophon assented silently with a nod of his head, and wheeled around to return to his troops. "That old son of a bitch is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later," he muttered, to no one in particular.
The next day, Xenophon saw, would be a test of his settlement with Chirisophus, for the weather and the marching conditions were even worse, if that was possible. We were traveling in a long, straggling line, each man and animal fending for himself. As the provisions' were depleted, each empty wagon was abandoned, to conserve our strength. A few of the soldiers who had wandered off the path ran across a black patch in the snow where it seemed to have thawed, and indeed it had, because of a tiny hot spring welling up from the ground beneath. Twenty half-dead soldiers crawled and crowded their way into it, soaking their feet and legs in the steaming soup, neglecting even to scrape away a small side-hole from the main spring where they could mix the near-boiling sulfur water with snow to bring it to the proper temperature. These men, their feet already numb from the freezing temperatures and frostbite, and their skin already loose from gangrene, were horrified to see skin and flesh slough off of their own accord after dipping their limbs in the hot water, defying their frantic attempts to save their feet by tightly binding the loose meat to their bones with rags.