The Helvetian Affair Read online

  This technique left the front-line man horribly exposed. In stabbing forward with the gladius, the soldier’s entire right side, his latus apertum, his “open side,” was exposed. His partner’s main concern was to keep the enemy from sneaking in on that side when the front-line man’s sword was fully extended. While there was also some vulnerability on the soldier’s latus opertum, the left side, when he delivered the percussus, it was significantly less than on the sword side, so the forward man’s geminus tended to hover on his right side during the advance. The geminus’ other task was to relieve his partner when he became exhausted.

  Strabo used the open-rank advance drill for conditioning. After lining us up in a four-man front in full kit with training swords and “baskets,” he would have us advance across an open field with no opposition: step, punch, step, thrust, withdraw, step, punch, step, thrust, withdraw. The whole time, he was screaming at us:

  “My sister hits harder than that, Loquax!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Stay aligned! Stay aligned!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Harder, Rufus, you little girl!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “You hit like that, Pustula, and the only way you’ll kill a barbarian is if he laughs himself to death!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Lentulus! You’re falling behind! Move it!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  And, so it continued until we were ready to puke our guts up—or until after one of us had puked his guts up.

  To give us the real feel of the technique, Strabo again brought in a detail of slaves with sandbags. He aligned us in a four-man front—each front-line man with a trailing geminus—and had us advance up a ridgeline against the sandbagwielding slaves.

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Stay aligned!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Cover Loquax’s open side, Pagane!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Hit harder, Loquax! Make that man grunt!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “You puke on my grass, Minutus, and I’ll have you for breakfast!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  About halfway up the ridge, Strabo had us execute a relief where the trailing geminus replaced the lead man on the front line without breaking the momentum of the advance. To do this, the trailing man swung around the open side of the lead man as he was delivering the forward thrust with his gladius. The trailing man would come through the gap, while delivering a percussus with his scutum. The man who had been relieved would then take up the trailing position by moving around to the open side of his partner by the time he delivered his first sword thrust. The advance continued, uninterrupted, with Strabo shouting directions:

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Get your alignment back, you maggots!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Hit harder, Pustula, you cockroach!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Loquax, cover Pagane!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  When we reached the top of the ridgeline, Strabo let us briefly celebrate our victory over the twelve withdrawing slaves with sandbags. Then, he ran us back down the slope to do it again.

  It was a couple of days past the Ides Martis. The weather had finally broken, and we could feel the warmth of the returning sun on our faces, necks, forearms, and legs when we trained outside. There was now plenty of mud in the camp and in the surrounding fields for Strabo to make our training “interesting.”

  The Tenth Legion was in a frenzy of preparation for the campaign season. Entire cohortes of the legion were playing war games and staging mock battles against each other in the training fields around Aquileia.

  At our morning training formation, Strabo told us that he had heard a rumor in the officers’ mess that there was a crisis brewing in the north. A Gallic tribe, the Helvetii, had overthrown their Senate and leaders, and their warriors were on the move toward our provincia. The last time the Helvetii had moved south was during the great Cimbri invasions in Marius’ time. Then, they allied with the Krauts, killed a Roman consul, and forced an entire Roman army to pass under the yoke. Caesar Imperator, our proconsul and commander, had rushed north from Rome to Gennava, an oppidum, a fortified trading town of a Gallic tribe called the Allobroges, socii Populi Romani, an ally of Rome, at the farthest extent of our imperium in Gaul. Gennava guarded a bridge near the mouth of the River Rhodanus where it flowed down from a great lake called Lammanus. The Helvetii wanted to seize the bridge in order to invade our lands and those of our allies. Caesar intended to stop them.

  Caesar had no confidence in these Allobroges. He doubted they would stand with us and was sure they would not stand alone against the Helvetii. But, Caesar had only one legion north of the Alps, Strabo’s Eighth. The Seventh, Ninth, and our Tenth, all veteran legions, and two newly recruited legions, the Eleventh and Twelfth, were encamped around Aquileia. Caesar had dispatched one of his legates, his senior commanders, from Rome to take command of these five legions and get them ready to march. As soon as the passes across the Alps were open, they were to move into Gallia Transalpina to reinforce the Eighth at Gennava before the Helvetii overran them. If the Helvetii were to succeed, the lands of our allies, the Allobroges, and the entire Roman provincia in Gaul would be ravaged by these barbarians.

  Our training took on a new sense of urgency. We had to be ready to stand in the battle line by the time our legion moved out. So, as the sun was just beginning to pink the eastern sky, Strabo double-timed us down through the Porta Decumana, through the civilian vicus, and out into a large, flat, grassy field, where about a dozen legionary slaves were waiting for us with their sandbags.

  Strabo lined us up for the open-order advance. I was on the front line for the first run-through. Minutus was my geminus.

  That was what saved my life.

  The slaves lined up opposite us with their sandbags, acting as targets for our weighted training shields and swords. We began the drill.

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Get your head in it, Felix!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  “Hit that bag like you mean it, Pustula! That slave’s laughing at you!”

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  After about four or five repetitions, as I made my sword thrust, thus exposing my side and sword arm, I felt a blow on my forearm. I didn’t think anything of it and continued the drill.

  “Step! Punch! Step! Thrust! Withdraw!”

  Then, I heard Minutus gasp, “Pagane! You’re bleeding!”

  I looked down at my sword arm, still extended in my thrust, and noticed a red, dripping rent near the top of my forearm. I froze. I noticed that the slave in front of me had dropped his bag and was moving in on my open side. There was something shining in his right hand.

  Before I could react, I sensed a blurred motion from my right rear. I saw Minutus’ arm shoot out and his weighted vimen hit the charging slave full in the face. The man crumbled like a puppet whose strings were suddenly cut. Minutus followed up his percussus by stabbing the supine slave in the throat with his wooden rudis.

  It was textbook. I knew the man was dead.

  Then, I heard Strabo yell, “What, in the name of coleones Martis, are you two doing?”

  Then, the pain hit.

  It shot up my arm into my brain, like a hot, red wave. I looked and saw my arm dripping with blood below the elbow. My brain vaguely registered that the blood had flowed down over my hand and onto my wooden practice sword, and I was fleetingly worried how I was going to get it cleaned up for inspection. I fell to my knees, dropping my basket. Anot
her demerit, my foggy mind registered.

  Then, Strabo was there with me. He was pulling my red sudarium, my infantry scarf, off my neck and stuffing it into the hole in my arm.

  I heard him saying, “It’s dripping, not spurting . . . That’s good . . . It’s a scratch . . . You’ll be fine . . . Can you move your fingers?”

  I wondered what my fingers had to do with anything, yet I willed them to move. It seemed to take a long time, but finally they did move for me.

  Again, Strabo, “Good . . . That’s good . . . That cunnus didn’t slice any of the tendons . . . Minutus! Give me your sudarium here!”

  I felt something tighten around my arm over the wound.

  Then I heard Felix’s voice, “He had this, Optio!”

  Strabo, “A sica! How did that podex get hold of a sica? Is he dead?”

  Rufus, “As a doornail, Optio . . . Minutus just about took his head off . . . not much left of the face.”

  Strabo was untying my galea. He let it drop to the ground. More demerits for inspection, my foggy mind registered.

  “Get the head slave over here!” Strabo shouted.

  Then, to me, “You keep your head down till it clears . . . It’s a scratch . . . You’ll be fine . . . Lentulus! Keep an eye on Pagane here!”

  Strabo left me as Lentulus moved in.

  Then, I heard Strabo, “Who is that, Demetri?”

  “Illum non cognosco, Domine! Don’t recognize him, Lord! He’s new. He just joined our domus this morning,” responded the one called Demetri.

  Strabo, “You know if he killed a soldier, your whole domus would be crucified?”

  Demetri, “Yes, Domine . . . The man’s new . . . I don’t know him . . . The only thing I can tell you is he spoke Latin like a Roman.”

  Strabo, “Like a Roman? That’s odd . . . a slave from Rome . . . That makes no sense! Demetri, get your boys to police-up the body . . . Drop it off with the medics . . . Tell them Optio Strabo doesn’t want them to touch it or lose it . . . Then you get back to your stabulum . . . Stay there until someone comes for you . . . You’re restricted until further notice . . . Compre’endis tu?”

  “A’mperi’tu’, Domine!” Demetri responded.

  Strabo walked over to where I was kneeling. “You think you can stand up, Pagane?” he asked.

  “Possum, Optio,” I answered.

  The fact that Strabo didn’t just order me to my feet indicated his concern. Slowly, I got up, leaning on Lentulus.

  Then, I remembered my helmet and equipment on the ground. I made to pick them up, but Strabo stopped me. “Don’t worry about your gear, Pagane. Your mates’ll take care of it for you. Minutus!”

  “Yes, Optio,” my geminus responded.

  “Good job taking out that podex that tried to stick Pagane. That’s how this geminus shit’s supposed to work in combat! Next time, don’t waste a sword thrust on a dead man! Other than that . . . bene gestum . . . good job! Now, I want you and Lentulus here to get Pagane over to the medics . . . Keep an eye on him . . . Something’s going on here that doesn’t smell right . . . A new slave with a Roman accent? . . . Stick with Pagane till I send for you . . . Got it?”

  “A’mperi’tu’, Optio,” Minutus responded. Then, I felt his hand under my shoulder, gently turning me back toward the gate of our castrum.

  Minutus and Lentulus walked me back to the medical station in camp. When we got there, a fair number of legionaries were waiting on sick call. The legion was training hard, so it was producing its fair share of bruises and strains. Since I was bleeding, I was seen immediately by one of our assistant medici, a jovial chap with black hair, olive skin, and an accent that would be right at home in the depths of the subura. He tried to send Minutus and Lentulus away, but they insisted they had been ordered by our optio to stay close to me.

  “I outrank yaw optio,” the doc told them, “but if ya wanna stay, just make shoowah ya don’t puke on my nice clean floor hee’ah. Dere’s a bucket ovah dere fer dat!”

  “Now, let’s see whadawegot hee’ah,” he said, unwrapping the infantry scarves around my forearm. He handed the sodden sudaria to Minutus, who went a bit pale when he felt the damp cloth hit his hands.

  The doc looked at my arm and whistled, “Dat’s some cut ya got hee’ah on y’arm! How’d dat happen?”

  “Uhhh . . . training accident . . . uhh . . . Medice,” I said, not quite sure what the military protocol was.

  “Just cawl me Spina. Everybody else ’round hee’ah does,” the doc said. “Training accident, huh? Looks like ya was in a knife fight in some wine dive in town. . . . I know cuts like dis . . . looks like a sica. Wiggle you fingahs for me!”

  Again, I wiggled them.

  “Dat’s good . . . Can ya make a fist?” Spina asked.

  I did, but I winced as pain shot through my arm.

  “Dat’s good,” Spina said again. “Stings dough, don’t it? Now, I want yas to make a fist atta one fingah atta time.”

  I did. Each finger seemed to work.

  “Dat’s good,” Spina said. “Doesn’t seem to be anyding wrong wid ya tendons. We get dis ding closed up and it don’t festah, ya should be back to work in a couple a weeks . . . tops . . . Mahcus! Get in hee’ah! Bring a bucket of dat boiled wawdah and some wine!”

  I looked over and saw Minutus still holding the sodden scarves, not quite sure how to get rid of them. Soon, Spina’s attendant, Marcus, entered the cubiculum with a bucket of water and a pitcher of wine.

  Spina took the wine from him, sniffed it, and said to Marcus, “Clean up de wound and de ahm.”

  Spina sipped the wine while Marcus worked.

  “Why boiled water?” I asked Spina.

  “When I was a novice, my praeceptor swaw on it,” Spina said putting down the wine pitcher. “Don’t know why, but when ya boil de wawdah, dere’s less infection. Greeks say it chases the daimones outta de wawdah. I think dat’s a load a crap, but it woiks, ’n’ I can’t argue wid dat.”

  When Marcus was done, Spina inspected his job. Satisfied, he told me to hold my arm over the bucket. Marcus grabbed onto my wrist.

  Spina looked at me and said with a wink, “Dis is gonna sting a liddle!”

  Then, he picked up the pitcher and poured the wine over my wound.

  It felt like he had set my arm on fire. I tried not to make a sound, but a gasp escaped. “Cacat!”

  “Shit, Indeed!” Spina echoed, draining the last drops of wine from the pitcher into his mouth. “Dah wine also chases de daimones outta yaw arm, so de Greeks say . . . and dat woiks, too!”

  The pain subsided, but I noticed that Marcus had not let go of my wrist. Spina was removing something from his medical kit. When he turned around, I noticed he had what looked like a curved needle attached to a length of brownish-black lumpy thread.

  Spina saw me looking. “Cat gut,” he said. “It’s miraculous, really. We get de stuff all de way from Egypt. I’m gonna sew yaw arm muscle back together, and yaw body’ll absorb de stitches by itself. Dah Greeks’re amazing with what dey come up wid . . . Oh . . . yaw not gonna like dis part.”

  Spina was right. I didn’t like that part at all. By the time he was done, Marcus’ fingers had bruised my wrist, and there were tears rolling down my cheeks. I also noticed Minutus and Lentulus had gone out in search of a puke bucket.

  “Bene,” Spina said, examining his handy work. “Woist part’s ovah! Now, I just gotta close you up. Den Mahcus hee’ah can bandage y’arm and yaw on yaw way.”

  By the time Marcus was finishing my bandages, there was a commotion outside the cubiculum. A soldier burst into the room. He was in full kit, under arms without shield, and wore the thin purple sash of the praetorian detail around his waist.

  “Are you Tiro Gaius Marius Insubrecus?” he demanded.

  “Uhhh . . . yes . . . uhhh . . . sir,” I stammered.

  “You are to come with me to report to the praefectus castrorum, forthwith!” he ordered.

  Spina interrupted, “If ‘fort’wid’ m
eans when I’m done wid ’im, Praetoriane, then we got no problem.”

  The praetorian winced at Spina’s use of the Latin language.

  “Of course, Medice,” he responded. “Are you the doctor in charge of this case?”

  “Dat’s me!” Spina agreed.

  “Then, my compliments, sir,” the guard continued. “The praefectus requests that you examine the body of the dead slave and report to him your findings at your earliest convenience.”

  “My earliest convenience,” Spina repeated. “Dat’s officah tawk for fort’wid, right?”

  The praetorian didn’t answer that question.

  “Bene,” Spina continued. “Let me finish up wid dis one hee’ah, and I’ll examine yaw dead slave. Then, I’ll be along fort’wid.”

  Spina had Marcus make me up a sling, and he told me to keep my arm in it until he examined my wound again in three days. Meanwhile, I was on restricted duties: no using the arm, no double-timing, and stay away from filth—so no latrine duty.

  “And, diss is impaw’ent,” Spina warned. “Ya should see some dischahge from de wound, looks like wawdery blood, and you will probably have a little fevah tonight, but if ya see any white, milky discharge, aw yaw fevah doesn’t go away by the mawnin’ or ya see red lines goin’ up yaw ahm or the wound gets puffy and starts to stink, get right back hee’ah! And, just drink plenty of wawdah!”

  “What if any of that stuff happens?” I asked.

  “If yaw lucky,” Spina said, “people’ll be callin’ you Lefty for de rest of yaw life . . . If not . . . well . . . let’s just hope for de best . . . eh?”

  We left the medical station and the praetorian escorted Minutus, Lentulus, and me to the praetorium, where we had reported weeks ago when we first arrived at the castrum. This time we were ushered straight into the prefect’s cubiculum. Strabo was already there with the prefect, whose name I recalled was Decius Minatius Gemellus.