Gods and Legions (19 page)

Those who receive a second chance at life are often far tougher for it. Yet the first failure still rankles.

Although not a man had been killed or even injured on either side, the bridge had been utterly destroyed but for a few sad-looking vessels on either end. The planed planks that hung off their bows to link with the craft ahead of them in line now protruded forlornly like the tumescent tongues of the dead, and soldiers and engineers took turns standing on the end to stare with melancholy down the river whence the bridge's middle sections had disappeared. On the far side, across the immense distance now remaining to be spanned again, equal numbers of frustrated soldiers gathered. Barbatio was furious. Plans for the crossing had been set back weeks, for the timber required to build new rafts and road planks now had to be hauled considerably farther across the denuded slopes surrounding the encampment.

In the end, the army swallowed hard and did what Roman armies do best: cinched its belt, flexed its muscles, and hunkered down for more.

Barbatio was determined that a handful of Alemanni lumberjacks and suicide swimmers would not get the best of his legions, and in this regard he had become much wiser: Before commencing the rebuilding of the bridge, he posted detachments of soldiers every mile upstream for five miles, each outpost supplied with a quantity of small rafts and dinghies. These were assigned the duty of intercepting any further flurries of floating log missiles the barbarians might send down. In fact, Barbatio's instincts were correct on this score, for on three separate occasions, all in the dead of night, we were awakened by breathless runners reporting that flotillas of logs had been sighted upstream and that the Roman interceptors were at that very moment paddling furiously into the current with their pikes and ropes to seize the logs and guide them ashore before further damage could be wreaked.

On all three occasions, Barbatio sent additional troops from the camp racing into the water with their own rafts to head off any logs that might have slipped past their brethren upstream. For this very reason, a narrow gap the width of perhaps two or three vessels was left in the middle of the newly constructed bridge until the last moment, as an opening through which any rogue logs that might have escaped could be guided without damaging the existing span. But the men upstream performed their tasks efficiently, indeed magnificently. No log made its way through to the bridge.

Strangely enough, however, not a single black-greased, reed-breathing barbarian was ever caught; unlike the first destructive volley, the three subsequent releases of logs from upstream were all unmanned, as if the Alemanni were actually expecting us to counter their efforts on these occasions. I had my suspicions as to their motives, but I held my tongue in the midst of the general exuberance and backslapping that reigned in the camp after each attempt had been successfully turned back. Why spoil the party? Besides, Barbatio had refused all my requests for an interview, though he had no objection to my lodging in the barracks and even taking meals in the staff headquarters with his officers. I lingered in camp to witness the final crossing before reporting back to Julian.

Two weeks later the bridge was finally readied again, except for the last link in the middle, the safety gap. The three vessels to be inserted in that position had already been planked for wagons, and their length carefully measured so that at the appropriate time they could be quickly placed into position, readying the bridge for use within no more than two hours after the order was given.

The middle link was to be lashed into place at dawn, and the first supply wagons had already lumbered across the near half of the bridge and up to the gap, awaiting the final signal to cross. That moonless night the entire army spent awake by the light of ten thousand torches, breaking camp and consolidating their provisions in the enormous warehouses at the foot of the bridge on the right bank, readied to be loaded onto the oxcarts and trundled across to the western side as soon as the first rays of sun appeared.

On the second watch, an upstream runner burst noisily and breathlessly into the staff commissary, where Barbatio and his officers were busily wolfing down a meal and agreeing on last-minute instructions for the crossing on the morrow. I set down my plate and edged closer to the center of the room to listen to the commotion.

'Sir!' he gasped. 'The barbarians have made another attempt!'

The officers in the room leaped up in alarm, but Barbatio simply smiled confidently.

'Another load of logs, soldier?' he said quietly. 'I trust that since you are not bellowing for assistance, this one, too, has been intercepted?'

'Not logs this time, sir,' the man panted, now regaining his breath. 'A fire ship.'

Now Barbatio slowly stood up, his face darkening in anger. This was a tactic he had not anticipated. Fire ships were said to have been used occasionally by the Greeks in antiquity, as a desperate weapon to break naval blockades or destroy closely massed squads of transport vessels. They were older craft, deteriorated from dry rot and ready to be scuttled, that were soaked with a flammable substance, fired, and set adrift in the direction of the target. With luck, they would collide with a group of enemy vessels and set them afire as well, or at least cause them to scatter in chaos. Such a tactic, however, had never been used by the barbarians.

The courier hastily continued. 'Our detachment five miles up was patrolling even farther upstream, anticipating that the Alemanni might plan a ruse. Three miles beyond our camp, we sighted a transport scow – a huge one, sir – heading downstream without lights. One of those deep-bottomed craft the Alemanni use for the ice trade.'

At this, the men looked questioningly at one another until one of Barbatio's northern veterans explained: 'Aye, sir, the barbarians collect ice in blocks from the Belgicae up north during the winter months, pack it tightly in sawdust, and pole it upstream during the summer when the water is lower. Must be one of the vessels they use for that.'

The courier nodded. 'The men caught it, sir. Boarded it without incident while the barbarians dove off the other side. It's riding high, no ice in the hold from the looks of it. The decks were stacked with barrels of turpentine and pitch. The Alemanni didn't even have a chance to pour it over the vessel, sir, before we captured it.'

Barbatio stroked his chin thoughtfully and began to relax. 'Seaworthy, is it? And empty you say?'

'Yes, sir – practically new. The barbarians must be desperate to be sending expensive vessels like that to be fired. The men are floating it downstream now.'

Barbatio clapped his hands together and cracked his knuckles, grinning broadly. 'Excellent, excellent. A bit of luck, wouldn't you say, gentlemen? A large vessel like that could speed our crossing. As it is, the weight of full oxcarts means we can't have more than six or eight vehicles on the bridge at any one time. If we ship our supplies over, however, we can send the carts and wagons across empty, and line them up nose to tailgate – it'll speed the crossing. When this vessel arrives, moor it at the warehouse and open the hold. We can load the grain and provisions in there. Save the flammables – perhaps we can offer our friend Chonodomarius a warm gift in return for his hospitality.'

The men guffawed at the poor joke, and the group broke up, all to attend to their separate tasks. I myself wandered down to the main pier to witness the vessel's arrival.

I didn't have long to wait, for even in the blackness of the moonless night the ship could be spied far up the placid river. The triumphant Roman squad that had captured it had festooned its mast and spars with lanterns and candles. As it slowly pulled up to the pier, the men on the dock cheered, not only at their good fortune at averting another disaster, but at having acquired such an aid to conveyance. Dozens of hands reached to seize the vessel's ropes and tie it hard by the dock, while others began hastily cutting a large hole through the rough-hewn planks of the warehouse wall on the water side, under which the vessel's hatches could be positioned for the bulk grain to be more easily shoveled in. Other dozens of hands reached down to assist the grinning crew in climbing up onto the pier, and marching songs broke out spontaneously to celebrate the good fortune.

I peered over the side. Indeed, all available space on the deck had been loaded with barrels and crates of tinder, turpentine, pitch, naphtha – any flammable material the barbarians could lay their hands on. Had the Roman detachment arrived just a few moments later, after the ship had been fired, it would have been impossible to divert – indeed, no boarding party would have been able to approach within a hundred feet and it would have drifted unimpeded into the bridge downstream – a terrible, and this time fatal, disaster.

Several smiths were brought up, bearing mallets, chisels, and saws, and were soon well on their way to cutting through the heavy bars on the hatches. As on all such vessels, its three oaken hatch ports had been fitted snugly to withstand swelling or shrinkage, maintaining an airtight seal and protecting the ice they covered. The workers, preparing to shovel the grain into the holds, crowded closer as the smiths' saws broke through the thick iron bolts.

'Stand back,' called out a burly officer from one of the Germanic auxiliary divisions. Barbatio normally posted his allied Germanic cohorts with the construction and road-building crews, away from the front lines, out of his suspicions as to their loyalty in combat. The fellow was tall and commanding, and he strode across the deck on top of barrels, shouting in his harsh and heavily accented Latin, 'Give 'em room to work! Here's a lantern. Clear out whatever's in the hold, make sure it's dry inside, and start shoveling that grain. You men – start carting these barrels off of here.'

With some effort, the smiths slid the enormous bolts through the loops and seized the stout wooden handles. As the three ports were pried open, the officer approached the middle one with his lantern to peer inside, and a sudden thought came to me as I recalled my days in Athens, packing cadavers in sawdust for their protection, the smell like rotten eggs, the composting shavings steaming from heat, actually hot to the touch. I paused for a moment, thinking, sniffing the air venting from the hatches, and then...

'No!' I shouted, and leaped back a half dozen steps to the other side of the dock. A hundred men went suddenly silent as all eyes turned to me with expressions of surprise and amusement, like a crowd watching an epileptic.

'No!' I repeated. 'It's sawdust from the ice! Back away! Put out your lanterns!

The hundred pairs of uncomprehending eyes filled with confusion. The smith crouched as if frozen, holding the hatch door open, while men edged away from the deck, not understanding my words, but sensing something was terribly amiss. I too turned, and began walking swiftly toward the foot of the bridge, but kept my eyes fixed on the hold, when I witnessed the bravest and perhaps most terrible act in my life.

The Germanic auxiliary, like everyone else, had stopped short just at the opening, holding high aloft his flaming lantern as his eyes flashed between me and the dark opening of the hatch. His face, and his alone, was calm and lacking fear – rather, he wore a fixed expression of dead determination. Pausing only a moment, he looked at the smith still squatting motionless at the hatch opening, and then with a loud cry of 'Long live Chonodomarius!' he brandished his torch, took one step forward, and dropped feet-first into the inky darkness of the hold.

There was a brief pause during which time seemed to stand still. I turned my head toward the shore and began to run. Men looked at me in puzzlement and fear, unsure themselves whether to turn and flee or to step forward in curiosity as to what had set off my fright, and I tried to call out to them to run for their lives, but no words came from my mouth. My legs felt leaden and unresponsive, and in the end, my body leaning forward in an attempt to move faster, I stumbled, my fingers grazing the rough, wooden planks, picking up jagged splinters in my knuckles as my feet left the decking. I flew headlong into a crowd of surprised carpenters running up to join in the commotion, my shoulder driving roughly into the face of one of them and stifling the oath he had just begun to shout at my clumsy fleeing.

As I landed I felt the ground beneath me, the solid ground, tremble and rumble noiselessly for a moment. I then was hit by a rushing blast of hot air from behind. I turned and was almost blinded as an enormous ball of flame welled up from the ship's hold, fed by the naphtha-impregnated sawdust inside. It engulfed what had been the ice vessel, and expanded to swallow everything around it for a hundred feet, a hundred and fifty feet, more. I scrambled up again and began running, and this time I found purchase on the solid ground and sprinted headlong through the paralyzed crowds of men, who stared as the fireball swelled, grew, and then rose upwards, and we were hit by the heat as if from the open door of a blast furnace, a heat that blinded and toppled men not even touched by the direct impact of the flames.

I continued running until I reached the street and was able to pause behind the solid wall of a long building, and found myself praising God for the shelter of those overhanging eaves. The air was thick with a rain of flaming planks and shards of wood, support beams and molten nails, in such density that it appeared solid with steel and flame. These were followed by grislier objects – arms and feet, open-mouthed heads with hair aflame like screaming Gorgons, torsos and entire, intact bodies. Moments after these had landed, the air thickened again with flaming pellets and droplets of pitch, a fiery, hellish rain that stuck to the skin and burned like branding irons, impossible to shake off, or to be plucked without sticking to the sensitive tips of one's fingers – an excruciating pain impossible to remedy short of scuffing dirt onto the droplets to extinguish their flame. Finally, a sound as if of hail – the light sprinkling of six months' supply of grain for five Roman legions, raining out of the sky whence it had been blown in the destruction of the warehouse.