Chapter XII
"Courage conquers all things, it even gives strength to the body” - Ovid
We had propped Meridius against the masthead. As the fighting raged, I saw him cough blood that sprayed across his chest with almost every breath. His face was a ghastly pale and his eyes rolled periodically as he fought to remain conscious.
Junius and I stood with eight others, holding our shields up, encircling our Tribune. We were determined to protect Meridius. The howling mob of corsairs had fallen back. They grinned with savage glee. They knew that the end was at last approaching. They closed slowly, savouring the moment. I could see their eyes, wide and wild as they readied themselves to finish these arrogant, hated Romans.
The first corsair raised his sword. Ready to rush forward, he hesitated. We heard a cry of dismay was behind him. I looked beyond the line of attackers and a savage smile began to form slowly upon my blood-encrusted lips. I felt like cheering, laughing aloud.
Instead of the corsair's reinforcements, the two newly arrived ships that had and tied to the corsairs ships, contained armed men. Not just armed men, but Roman legionaries. They had now discarded grey cloaks and revealed the red tunics and breastplates of the Roman legionary marines. They donned their helmets and their officer’s horsehair plumes almost glowed red to my eyes in the afternoon light.
With a quiet and determined tread, they pushed forward and the killers became the defenders, now outnumbered themselves, as the small Roman contingent had been only moments before. The front line of the marines advanced slowly, they were thrusting, stabbing and killing. They advanced with the honed skill and silent order that was the core of their training, stepping over the dead and dying, in an inexorable advance. Almost all the corsairs surrounding us had now turned and were facing the new enemy. With aching limbs and bloody arms and faces, we advanced and attacked the enemy from behind.
We killed in a frenzy. We fell on the backs of the corsairs. They found themselves beset now on both sides. Blood ran again across the deck, seeping down through the planks and dripping to the oars that swung ownerless, at the benches below-decks.
It was a short fight. The new Romans were fresh and well armed. They stepped over bodies and dying men as they advanced, first across the deck of the corsair's ship and then onto the blood washed Roman bireme. The corsairs threw down their weapons and sued for mercy. We had no inclination to spare them. We were stung by Meridius lying breathing his last behind us and by our dead comrades. We slaughtered man after man with no feelings of remorse, devoid of compassion.
The feelings that I had experienced after killing my first man, seemed to me to be a world away, a bagatelle, compared to the rage I felt and my wish for vengeance. I took one man's head with a right to left swing. I returned the blade across the throat of another. I reversed my blade. I stabbed a third through neck, and kicked one man to the ground as I did so. I turned and two unarmed men knelt before me. I had no feelings. I was a killing mechanically and was powerless to stop. Man after man fell to my blood-rage until their blood covered me. I was bathed in it and it ran down my face and arms. I rejoiced in death, revelled in the sheer brutal violence. Blood consumed me, drove me.
When there were no more within reach, I turned to continue my executioner's task but Junius grabbed me by the shoulder to hold me back.
'Aulus!' he shouted, 'Aulus, it's all done. There's no point in killing them, they’ve stopped fighting!'
I growled a guttural, animal sound and then stood. Slowly, as if pushed down by some unseen hand, my blade began to sink and the blood ran down it, dripping crimson to the bodies at my feet. I stood still, breathing hard. My head throbbed. I looked around me at the twisted, mutilated bodies and I smiled. It may seem hard to understand why I smiled, for it was a scene of such carnage that my wildest dreams could not have conjured up such a picture. It was an image of butchery and destruction of unearthly proportions. All humanity and gentle emotion was inaccessible and buried deep inside.
An animal rage lurks within us all. It appears and takes us in battle. It carries us on to do things that we cannot control. It has always been so, for are we not beasts in our deepest core? Do we not thirst for blood beneath this civilised veneer? Look to the arena, do you not hear the cries, the screams of delight when blood is spilled! It was so for me then. It consumed me and washed me. Blood.
Then quiet.
Then calm.
A return of the man and a consciousness of what we had done. I was shaking then. I felt nauseated and my head swam. I could have lain down on that deck and closed my eyes in weariness, in sorrow. My feelings soared and fell, but returned inevitably to the reality of the present.
We turned to our Tribune. He was breathing in short shallow rasps, too weak even to cough, as the blood welled up in his throat making bubbles of red froth appear at his lips. As I knelt beside him, our eyes met briefly. The dying man tried to speak. His lips moved but little breath came out. I leaned closer and heard the faintest sound of his voice against the background of the lapping waves and the occasional sound of voices.
'Must die,' I heard.
I frowned uncomprehending. Meridius cast his eyes once more at mine and tried to speak again.
'Traitor must die. Avenge me!' a whisper this time.
Meridius raised his right hand towards me, closed his eyes and his breathing ceased. As I stood contemplating the body before me, thoughts whirled in my head. Anger burned within me. We had to bring Asinnius to justice; we now had no one who knew that Asinnius was a traitor, unless Meridius had indeed committed himself in writing. I realised also that we had no other proof and if justice were to be done, I would have to take the matter into my own hands.
Junius looked at me.
'He was the best of us you know. For an officer he treated us all like comrades but still kept our respect. A rare man in any army.'
'Yes, I will miss him,' was all I could say through my unutterable weariness, which swept over me now, like the very waves that lapped the nearby rocks.
There were only ten of us left out of a half century of forty men. They had killed our Optio and Meridius lay in a pool of blood surrounded by the bodies of the dead corsairs.
'Where is your officer?'
It was a tall Tribune, a marine commander who spoke.
'Dead,' I said vaguely.
'Stand to attention when you address an officer! Are you wounded?'
I stood then and realised with surprise that I was entirely unscathed. My arms and legs, stiff with weariness dragged me to a vertical position and I stood to attention before this new officer.
'I am sorry we took so long to come, but if you hadn't fled from us we would have joined you much earlier.'
'We did not know who you were. We thought you were the corsairs.'
'Don't be stupid man; Meridius arranged this weeks ago. The plan was for him to light a fire and make a signal for us to know that you were leaving. We had to keep our distance or the corsairs would have known we were here in strength. I think Meridius purposely wanted to engage the enemy first, to trap them and maybe that was why he fled.'
'I suppose we will never know now.'
'No, but you and these men have fought well all the same and Meridius I am sure, would have been proud of you. Name?'
'Veridius Scapula, sir,' I said as I tried to maintain some semblance of standing straight. My aching limbs however, were trembling.
'Yes, he mentioned you. You and your companions will go aboard my ship and you can rest. My men will clear up the mess on these ships. I want a report from you by this evening. That is all.'
I saluted and turned, aware that he had dismissed me. All I wanted was to rest and as my comrades and I crossed the ships, we stumbled on bodies and slipped in the gore that littered the decks. We had not the energy to rifle the bodies as soldiers usually did after the end of a battle and we eventually sank to the deck on the far side of the newly arrived bireme.
Junius had bound a st
rip of his tunic across his scalp to hold the edges of his wound together, but was too exhausted to seek medical help. We sat propped against the gunwales and watched the clearing-up process. Our men forced the captured corsairs to discard their comrades' bodies overboard and the survivors, numbering only thirty or so, were herded below decks to man the oars, for no wind had risen. It began to rain and I was glad of it, for it washed the blood from my face and arms.
We spoke little, only grateful for the fact that we still lived and that the fighting had ceased. A man next to me wept and shook. I put a hand on his arm and he looked at me with wild eyes. He had faced death and survived and maybe that should have been enough, but it was not. I felt like weeping too and I began to understand then. I had become the soldier that I would remain all my life. It was rebirth. From child to man and from man to killer.
I realised how I had changed. I had started in the legion raw, unskilled and to my mind ignorant. In such a short time, I had learned skills, applied them and become a true soldier. I had also learned respect for my betters, and learned that it was better to kill than to die and I knew I would never feel the innocence of youth again.
I lapsed into thoughts of revenge. Asinnius had to pay, for I knew he was the one who had alerted the corsairs to the treasure and the Roman reclamation of it. Meridius knew it and I would not be deaf to his dying words. Revenge. It stirred my mind as no other thought.