The Fate of the Western Army.
I: Hygiene's Temple
The mountains were covered by the unnatural mist created by the cannons on their slopes, yet no sound was to be heard between the tents, the campfires, the walls and the trenches down the valley below, so high were the Imperial fortifications built.
Down in the valley, the soldiers ran hither-and-thither, some in outworn red, some in glittering yellow, some in drab grey or resplendent blue.
Their shouts, their steps, their clarion-calls, drum beats and their officer’s whistles would have silenced the batteries of the heavens, and those dug into the mountainside could do no better.
The noise also filled one pavilion, large, white, and full of beds.
A banner hanged upon a flag-poll topped by a crow, pronounced that this emblem was, by the will of the Roman Senate and People, bestowed upon the men in the 23rd Maniple (of the 83rd Legion, the Africans of Marcia), with full honors. Another one reminded its purveyors of the sublime lineage of Hygiea, the Pure, daughter of Asclepius, the Healer-god, and warned them of the folly of offending the child while supplicating the parent.
Indeed, if gods were to dwell in tents, there was truly no one in the world more suitable for the deity: for the sheets were white, the mattresses flat, the instrument shone, and the ground has been swept.
Nonetheless, in many beds lied filthy soldiers, all surrounded and fussed about by medici minores, stinking and shouting to high-heaven:
“Oh, Morrigan! I’m dead! Oh, the pain, my face! I can’t feel…”
At this point the speaker’s mouth, who, like the rest of his face, barring few scratches, was completely unharmed, was shut by a piece of cloth, as if to dress a wound. The chief medical, a broad and tall man with a broad and long golden beard, bend down to his mumbling client, and whispered to him:
“Pray be silent, Barrio. You were told to scream, not to give a speech. Be brave, this is almost over.”
And as the good medicus spoke, a great flourish went through the air, and the direction of the commotion in the tent has been reversed; medici dispersed from the bed, now emptying from the soldiers, struggling to remove their bandages and to find their sandals and belts.
“this was not very nice of you, my good Rutillianus,” said Barinas, after loosening the cloth enough for him to speak, but still fumbling to remove it from his eyes, “to silence a suffering man. What kind of performance would that have been in the field? I should report you to PL. That will put your men’s score down a little, which will weigh heavily on my heart, but one cannot neglect his duty.”
“Oh, do not fuss,” said Rutillian. “Keeping quiet in the infirmary is an important part of preserving morale. Besides, your face muscles were almost totally burned. You were not supposed to be able to speak.”
“was I? than it must be an omen!” joked Barrius Barinas, Tribune of the Declassian Auxiliaries.
“an omen for what? For a long winded, blowhard speech in the best Borana tradition?”
“I thought I was quite convincing”.
“Like Caesar in Gaul.”
“Speeches or Commentaries?”
“Speeches, as recorded in the Annals.:
“You are too harsh with me."
“You are harsh with your audience, like your model."
“I too have read Virgil, Sextus.”
“I doubt that” said Rutillian, remembering their time in the oratory of Gaius and Menelaus. “you were busy looking for his descendants when we were in Fiorentia.”
“Only the female ones” protested the Briton, “and strictly for genealogical purposes”.
Rutillian stroked his beard tentatively, “Expanding their genealogy, you mean”, he turned his gaze toward the entrance flap.
“Speaking of the House of Varro, what do you think of our illustrious leader?”
Barinas chuckled, “As a Roman and an Equestrian, he is without fault, but he is more dangerous to his men than to the enemy.”
Sextus grimaced. “Was it that bad?”
“Just imagine”, said the man of the Borana, “We are down the hillside, advancing double-pace. No longer in Aelius’ boys range. Had nice little cover. Before us: fortification, Cao style, you know – ditches, rotary guns, scorchers, teethed wire – the works. Every young tribune fresh out o’ Fiorentina would tell you, there’s a place and time for brave charges- but not this one.”
“I take it that legate Varo had had a different opinion.” Said Rutillian, handing him a piece of wet cloth, “here, use this”.
“Thank you. Our very own Scipio ordered us auxiliaries to charge... ‘It will soften them up’, he said... ‘They’ll run away’ he said…” Barinas took the soaked rag and started to clean up the paint from his face.
Rutillian took a paper and pen, “They didn’t run.”
“No, why would they?’’ Asked Barinas “They have superior positions. Took us all out in a heart’s bit. Thank the gods it wasn’t the real thing. Is it a local brew in that rag?” Barinas then proceeded to take a hearty sniff from the rag, “the Dagda’s lousy leggings! I’m thirsty!”
“Don’t suck on that muck, it’ll blind you! I have something from Salamis if you want: Old, nice and strong.”
“Never could understand how you Nostrians drink this sweet, cloggy stuff”, Barinas sucked on the cloth, ignoring Sextus’ advice. “A good, clean, pure spirit for me – or nothing at all.”
“Very well, I think I have some more. I keep it around as an emergency purifier - all per regulation of course.” Rutillian found a small flask in the folds of his clothes and gave it to Barinas. ‘’Here, enjoy.” Barinas took the flask in his grimy hand and raised it in gratitude.
“So, your wing got a proper pelting,” said Sextus, “what happens next?”
“The wise decision would have been to cut one’s losses and wait for the mortars to clear the ditches before sending the legionnaires up there.”
“But this is not what’s Varro decided.”
“Nay, he is sending Arian’s men in as they are. He told them to march half-pace, so the enemy will see them gleaming and marching in column. It was supposed to smoke them out...”
As the Briton was about to continue, the flaps of the tent suddenly opened. Legate Varo entered wearing an old-fashioned, though well woven and clean, military tunic with the number VII on its chest. A short cloak of black with purple trimming was thrown over one shoulder, in a manner suggesting he had tried to wear it in the civilian way, and then found out that it was to short for that. He was beaming.
“Ah, Captain! May I ask for your report?” asked Varo, with a big, almost comic smile.
Rutillian, annoyed by being addressed by his Commanding Magistrate in the shortened version of his rank, tried his best to hand over his report, while keeping his composure.
“Excellent! Let those numbers be sent to Italy. 267 soldiers in, 267 treated, all in 3 hours! I must recommend you sir, you and your Corps would be complimented in the report” he nodded to Barinas, “Tribune Auxiliary, my compliments. Your men’s today’s service would be recounted too.”
“Sir”, hissed Barinas, “I shall take this opportunity to inform you, that in my independent report my recommendations would be to never use infantry in that way. It was most cruel… sir.”
If it was at all possible, Varro’s smile grew even wider. “Sir, your men had done me and Rome a great service today, which I shall gladly report. You proved once and for all that even our most proficient storm parties, namely your 3rd Declassians, could not take a New-Model Caonese fort”.
Barinas and Rutillian looked at their chief with confusion. “But sir,” asked medicus Rutillian, “I thought the point of this exercise was to prove the superiority of the Anglic storming method.”
“My good Captain” said Varo calmly, “if you were a martial man you would have known that all exercises are experiments, and it’s an error to decide the outcome of an experiment at the outset.”
Rutillian was infuriated by that remark. No soldier in his right mind would call him or his men civilians. Too many times was the common legionnaire saved by their scalpel and sewing-needle. The Legate was not only disrespectful, but unsoldierly to boot.
Rutillian was almost tempted to tell the Chief about the many evidences of his generalship that were brought to his table a year ago. But he knew that he would be proving Varo right by complaining of wounds suffered by soldiers in a war; and he doubted that Varro would let him expand on the fact that those wounds were mostly of the kind common in people who fell into an ambush, though every man in the army knew who to blame for their failure to subvert many of those. Besides, it will be a shameful thing to let eighteen months worth of work to be lost for the satisfaction of winning one argument; for the scion of the Virgilian House, in the inactivity that have followed the campaign, was not the only one to conduct ‘exercises.’
Sextus’ unpleasant thoughts were interrupted by a rush and hassle from outside. Three men have entered the Medicine-Tent. Two of them were lictors, and the third wore the toga of a tribune of the Roman People. His toga was dusty, and at places stained green by the grass and torn in others. But no Roman City has the honor of equipping its officers with lictors, except the Metropolis herself; the man standing before them with the cloth of his toga cowling his head was one of the Plebian Tribunes of this year.
The man was tall and lean and exuded an air of confidence.
“Health to thee, Varro,” declaimed the Tribune, in the official way that every leader of Roman soldiers has dreaded since the demise of Pompey. “The People of Rome, in their Centuries, Assemblies and Tribes, inquire after your health and that of the men who are here with you. It is their wish to see you before them, and to know by what necessity you have kept from the City.”
Varro swallowed his spit and replied sheepishly: “Long live thee, Comenius. By the necessities of our task and at the People’s business”.
"The People’s business is my charge,” said Comenius, “And in these parts, they no longer have any. It has been eighteen months since.”
The general looked around. “All dismissed”, he said, “I have to speak with His Reverence, Captain of Surgeons, Tribune Auxiliary,” Varo called Rutillian and Barinas, “Inform the other officers, and with my compliments, tell them to enjoy their leave for another hour.”
II: The Assembly
The two friends had fulfilled their charge, and in an hour the officer’s mess-square had been cleared, and now none but the army’s officers stood there.
The Legate came to the assembly wearing a plain toga. He mounted the tribunal dais, his guards, his trumpeter, and his standard-bearer nowhere in sight. This was the mystery of the officers, and none might share in it but them.
Lucius Virgilius Varro Tabernicus have pulled the fold of his toga over his head, and spoke in the old dialect the Tuscan Latins:
"Roman men, faithful allies and honored friends.
"No greater honor and pleasure could have been bestowed by men upon me, than to command you, and this host, as I did this past three years.’’
"His Reverence, Comenius, tribune of the Roman People, had come to inform me that such an honor, an advantage, and a pleasure cannot be enjoyed by me any longer”.
Varro paused, and looked at the crowd, expectantly. The officers remained silent, no one cheered or jeered at the general. Virgil continued, with a rising voice.
"He informed me, that not only was my command stripped, but yours, gentlemen, as well.”
"This army, in short, no longer exists.” Murmurs started to spread through the crowd.
"The soldiers, and you, are to be paid in full for your services during the Forest War and receive an honorable discharge immediately”.
The officers were citizen and gentlemen, so the square have not been drowned in protests, shouts, nor jeers. But all-around, men have looked at each other in a befuddled manner, and a rumble of two thousand men whispering pulsated through the crowd. The officers were not to be compensated for more than a year of service, of which they were in arears. They and their men were to be sent home, empty handed, the luckiest of them will have just enough money to pay off their debts.
Varo raised his hand to quiet the crowd. “A great Roman has said, that no man should ever take upon himself a command, unless he is rich… And that no one is rich, unless he can pay for an army”, said Varro. “I am, unfortunately, not as rich as that... But at the very least, it is inside my means to pay the men.” He stretched his hand, pointing to the left corner of the Tribunal Square, where four men, carrying two ornate chests between them came to the light. “For you gentlemen, I have another accommodation, and I hope that you would find it satisfying to your honor.”