“Oh, may the fields that hide the hare
Hide well our hunted men,
As scattered rocks conceal the fox,
And smallest trees the wren,
As by the cart-wheel’s crushing track
The skylark knows no fears--
In vain, God grant, may England hunt
The Irish Volunteers.
Oh, may the winter be a spring
About them where they hide,
Oh, may by night the stars be bright
Their silent feet to guide,
May streams with fish and boughs with fruit
Be teeming through the years,
And every field a harvest yield
To the Irish Volunteers.”
_From an Irish Song: Winter, 1920-1921._
It was a marvellous feeling for Meromic, this waking up at dawn among
the dripping bushes of that misty hill; it was as if he had been newly
made, he had cast off all his past, he would not think of it, it
belonged to some one else, he was leaving it behind with every stride up
over the dew-soaked grass. What was ahead? He would have liked best to
join the army of Vercassivellaun, that gallant young cousin of the
General’s, who had so nearly broken the Roman lines on the last day;
but he was a prisoner and his army would most likely be scattered. After
all he might be best with the Aremorican folk: there might be a friend
or two there; perhaps Louaven had come over from Britain. Only it might
not be too easy to explain where he had been: better, then, to go to
strangers.
He climbed up above the mist and knelt a moment before the risen sun; as
he got to his feet again and turned, he found himself facing a Gallic
soldier with bloodstains on his armour and a drawn sword in his hand,
who demanded to know who he was. Meromic decided, on the spur of the
moment and thinking the man looked a Southerner, that he himself would
be a Venetan who had lost himself in the battle and did not know where
his own army was. “You’d best come with us,” said the other, “it’s not
safe to be alone on these hills so near the enemy.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m from the north bank of the Garunn, in Lucter’s army; we’ve arms and
food for any true man there. Will you come?”
Meromic made up his mind quickly; he had heard much of Lucter and his
Cadurci; he would go. They went together down the other side of the hill
into the mist again; the man, whose name was Gell the brown, was not in
the least suspicious and very friendly. He was less depressed about the
battle than Meromic thought any one could be; the men of the Cadurci had
attacked on the whole successfully; he had never even seen
Vercingetorix--all his loyalty was for his own general and chief,
Lucter--and besides, he had killed four Romans and taken their swords
as a trophy, not having had time to take their heads. At this Meromic
showed his own Roman pattern sword and invented a story of how he, too,
had killed his man. It was all so different from yesterday!
At the camp he was sworn in and told what his duties would be; Gell
offered him a corner of his shelter for the night, and they ate their
rations together. Meromic did not say he could speak Latin or knew
anything of the Roman army--the last thing he wanted was to be sent back
as a spy. The second day he saw Lucter riding over to a council, a fine
figure of a man, with a great brown beard, a helmet crested with
sea-eagles’ feathers, and a very long sword in a scabbard of scarlet
leather.
They retreated south-west at once; the chiefs and generals who were
left, Lucter and his friend Drappes, Gutuatros, Comm and the others, had
all decided to repeat the old plan of Vercingetorix, separate Cæsar’s
legions and destroy them, if possible, one by one. But nothing could be
done yet, it was no use staying near Alesia any longer, and they went
off towards their own places.
Meromic was by now quite used to being on his own, with his name and
reputation to be made again, his friends to be found, his old memories
to be stored away and not touched too often. At first he caught himself
thinking of Titus Barrus a good deal too much for his peace of mind; he
had to remind himself that from now on Titus, if he was anything, was an
enemy, one of those who were holding Vercingetorix captive, some one he
ought to hate: this he could never do, but at least he could forget him
and the last three years. Lerrys must be forgotten too, Lerrys who had
been his friend when he was most alone and miserable; but Lerrys had
Coisha now; and Titus would marry his Æmilia--would it make up to him,
though? And would any one else ever make up to Meromic for his lost
friends? But there was plenty to do by winter besides all this
remembering.
Lucter wanted to wait as long as possible in his own territory; the
winter-quarters of the legions were none of them very near, the closest
some way further east, a menace, but not at all pressing. But his army
had to be fed, and this was not too easy; besides, they were always
clamouring to go off and raid the neighbouring countries, and Lucter had
not always the power to stop them. So, late in November, he was glad to
have the chance of satisfying his men and also putting into practice his
old leader’s policy of harassing and ambushing the Romans without ever
making an attack himself with all his forces. There was fighting in the
north-east: the Carnutes, as usual the first to start a rising; it would
be well to help them by diverting the attention of the legions which
were quartered among the Ruteni, some fifty miles away, across a couple
of ranges of low hills. The first thing to do was to get the Romans into
the open, so one of the chiefs was sent out with his men to burn a
Rutenian town, carry off their cattle and women, and incidentally murder
an Italian trader. The magistrates of the town of course complained to
the Legate in command, and a legion was sent off to clear the honour of
Rome and protect her subjects. There was only one way they could come,
through a gap in the hills with a burn swirling in brown spate down the
middle, and pine-woods on each side, all scattered with big boulders and
fallen trunks, and brushwood along the sides of the path. There had been
a fairly heavy snowfall in the hills, and the last thing the Romans
expected was Lucter’s army; but they did not know that further west the
fall had been very thin, nothing to stop a small and hardy body of men
from marching light, with their meat driven before them on the hoof. And
the Ruteni were more friendly to the invaders than the Legate thought;
the town was a frontier town and quite used to being burnt from time to
time, and Lucter had secretly promised them compensation for their
cattle.
Meromic had been waiting, crouched behind his rock, for three or four
hours; they had had to come round and down very carefully to get into
their ambush without marking the snow, where every footstep showed
sharply distinct on the blue-shadowed white; there were a few flakes
falling from time to time, but on the whole it was blown smooth or into
little crested ridges. He was rather happy; he knew that Titus, if he
was not back in Italy, would be three hundred miles further north with
his legion, so that was not troubling him; and he had much to revenge.
His sword was well-balanced, his lance-head was firm on the haft, he was
longing to run with great strides down the clear slope in front of the
rock and fling himself on to some one in the path; he stuck his hands
into his armpits to keep them warm and supple for the sword play.
It was getting late in the day when they heard the legion marching
towards them; Meromic knew their song so well! The head of the column
marched past between the innocent snow-banks; sentences floated up, a
laugh, a curse, the fag-end of a story; they meant nothing to Gell, but
Meromic felt queerly dizzy to listen to them. Then, cutting through it
all, the whistle, the leap up and over and at them, a Roman face, large
and astonished, hands vainly trying to push the lance away, the jerk as
it went through, blood on his arms, and his head clear again. The column
had been cut through the centre and disorganized for the moment, but the
ends were forming up again, two solid fronts with the legionaries
throwing darts from behind their shields; Gell had one in his arm, but
shook it out, not much the worse. Meromic was down in the bed of the
burn, up to his knees in water, but sheltered by the bank; he called to
some of the others, they might as well wait till the Romans had
exhausted their weapons, and not be killed needlessly.
This was all very well, but the shower of darts and small spears went
on, and the Gauls were attacking madly; Meromic could not very happily
keep out of it, besides he was in an extremely cold place. He looked
about for a moment, thinking what fools his fellow-countrymen were to
try to force these locked ranks instead of clearing off after the first
attack, when the path was strewn with Roman bodies and they were
practically unhurt, and waiting for another good opportunity. Instead,
they were making these futile charges and wasting their strength;
Meromic had seen it all from the other side many times. There were
obviously some archers in the centre of the squares, but not many;
equally obviously they were holding their fire in the square that had
been formed by the head of the column, so that it seemed likely that the
mules or carts with the fresh supplies of weapons would be behind.
Meromic managed to get hold of Gell and a few others, and hastily told
them his plan; they hurried down the burn, quite hidden by the high bank
and the bushes between it and the path. As Meromic had hoped, the
supplies of arrows and javelins were carried by mules, all tied head and
tail so that they would follow the first one. The Gauls climbed up out
of the burn, and got together on the bank, looking to Meromic for the
word; he led them forward with a yell; they were on to the drivers with
their swords, but they were only a few against many.
Still, there was a very thorough confusion; the mules squealed and
reared and got their legs over the tie-ropes; the driver of the first,
wounded on the head and half blind, but still at his post, heard a voice
behind him speaking good Latin: “I’ll take charge now; you get back.”
The man gave over the bridle thankfully to this new-comer. The mule
snapped at the stranger, who dodged him and scrambled on to his back,
upsetting the pack of arrows, and kicked him with a hard heel as he
plunged; at this the mule gave a buck and started off, wheeling round
and lashing out to the side as he felt the bit pressing over. In a
minute he was away down the path he had come up, with squeals and kicks
and wriggles, but no getting the rider off his back; the others followed
him, biting and striking every way with their wicked little hoofs. The
drivers tried to cut the ropes that tied them together, but between the
mules themselves and the attacking Gauls they had no chance; and none of
the darts they threw at the rider had brought him down.
Half a mile off Meromic pulled his mule round and up on to a steep track
that twisted through the pines; he flogged the leader on till he got to
another path which skirted the hill on a higher level, above the
thickest pines, and turned along that and so back to the old place. Here
he tied up the sweating mules and shouted to the men below; this new
supply of weapons was as welcome to the Gauls as its loss was bad for
the Romans. The second square, which was depending entirely on the
mules, wavered visibly; the Gauls swept on to it and broke the ranks.
Meromic was in the thick of that charge; he heard himself shouting “The
North! The North!”; he felt himself a tearing wolf. But as he tugged his
sword from a dead man’s throat he saw it was dusk, there were no more
enemies, only the Gauls all round him, wiping blood off their faces,
helping their own wounded, stripping the Roman dead and dying.
But for that coming of night the whole legion might have been cut to
bits; as it was, the Legate escaped with half his men, back down the
glen, to send for help and wonder nervously whether the attack would be
followed up. It was not, of course; the Gauls were much too much pleased
with themselves and what they had done already; they wanted to stop and
drink and talk about it. Lucter would have made them go on, but he had
not enough authority over the chiefs, and, besides, even he could not
quite realize how thoroughly he had disorganized them; the most he
hoped was that it might draw down some of the Roman troops from the
North, and so help the Carnutes.
Meromic wiped his sword, and sat down, suddenly very tired, and
surprised at finding that he had a deep hack on one shoulder that had
just missed the vein: the edge of his deer-skin cloak was stuck in it.
He was rather sore all over, and looked at himself carefully: the mules
accounted for the horse-shoe shaped grazes on his thigh; he had had an
arrow in his back, but the arrow was out, so it could not be bad; one
arm was a little cut and his face was covered with blood from several
big scratches, perhaps made by the pine boughs. However, his shoulder
was the only one that worried him at all; it was getting stiff and he
couldn’t reach it easily himself. Just then Gell came up with two or
three heads, which he carried by a finger hooked into each of their
mouths, and a silver belt over his arm.
“You’ve made your name this time!” he said. “They want to see you in the
evening; remember we helped you.”
“Were any of you killed?”
“Not one; as soon as you were well away we cleared off into the wood. A
bit cut about, that’s all. You don’t seem to have got hold of anything
much, though”--he swung his own trophies.
“No.... My shoulder’s hurt. Will you help me?”
“Surely,” said Gell, and they bathed it in snow water by one of the
camp-fires, and bandaged it with fresh moss and linen, while the heads
gaped at them from the ground.
Later on Meromic was called up before Lucter and the chiefs; he was
pleased with himself; he felt that all this blood must nearly have wiped
out his old shame, that he was fit to be the Wolf again. He was enjoying
it all: the crisp snow underfoot, the sky prickled with hundreds of
stars between the pine branches, the clean dressing on his wound, the
stiffness of his sword arm, and Gell and the others envying and admiring
him. In the fire-lit shelter of hurdles and boughs, Lucter and his
companions sat together on logs covered with otter skins, drinking and
planning and watching the pile of helmets grow in front of them. Meromic
came and held out his sword for Lucter to touch the hilt; he told his
story with applause from all; Lucter bade one of his men see to it that
Meromic was given a good horse and harness, and pulled off one of his
own bracelets and clasped it on Meromic’s arm, saying, “That’s for now;
go on as you’ve done, and when Gaul is free you shall have a better
reward. You’re a Venetan, they say: who was your father?”
“Kormiac the Wolf; he was one of the Council.”
An oldish man started up from behind Lucter: “Kormiac of the Islands!
Why, I remember him as well as if it was yesterday! And you too--a boy
you were then, always sailing in your boat, you and that pretty little
sister of yours. I thought you were killed in the battle of the ships;
let me look at you!” He laid both hands on Meromic’s shoulders: “Yes,
yes, you’re the same boy, and a fine young man you’ve grown up to. The
Pride of the Islands they called you in those days. What’s been
happening to you since that summer? We heard you were dead.”
“I was wounded, but not killed. I had to surrender.... I won’t say any
more!” He looked round defiantly at them all.
Lucter shook his head, smiling at them: “No, no, there’s no need to
tell. The past is past. We know what it is to be in the hands of the
enemy. There’s more than one of us here who’s been a prisoner. There
comes the Arvernian; he was taken at Alesia: he understands.”
Meromic turned to see this new chief who had come to join the others;
the Arvernian looked at him; they both stayed still and staring.
Caltane spoke first: “What are you doing here?”
“I’m a soldier: ask them what my service is!”
Caltane turned to the chiefs and Lucter himself answered for Meromic.
“Very well,” said Caltane. “I see he may prove himself yet, though it’s
a year too late. Meromic, I’ve a message for you.”
“Oh, is it--is it--what did he say?”
“He said you had paid him, that he understood and dismissed you freely,
and that you would be welcome back any time, whatever had happened, when
there was no other hope.”
“I knew he’d let me go. Oh, Caltane, my thanks for telling me!” He
covered his face with his hands, wanting to laugh and cry both at once.
The old man asked suspiciously from whom the message came. Caltane
looked hard at Meromic: “You’d better all know. It’s from a Roman
officer, his master----” But Lucter stopped him, with “That’s enough,
Caltane,” then to Meromic: “Was this what you wanted not to say? Ah
well, I should be glad if none of my men had anything worse to look back
on.” So Meromic kissed his hand and went out with the bracelet on his
arm.
Half-way through the wood he heard steps running after him in the snow;
Caltane caught him up, panting, and said, “Shall we be friends, Meromic?
You’ve got that three years to make good, but now they all know of it,
so it’s no matter. And I’m homeless; they only let me go with the chiefs
because I was in Alesia. I’m a stranger among them, they don’t wish well
to an Arvernian, any more than you did, but Lucter, who is a good man,
was a friend of my King and has me for his sake.”
Meromic took his hand: “It’s because of your King that I’m here; I’ll be
glad to be friends again, Caltane.” And they went on together.
* * * * *
Titus Barrus went back to Rome; what ages since his last leave! Then, as
now, he had been lonely; but not unhappy, and he had looked forward,
instead of always back, back, like an old man. He saw his grandfather
first, who was growing fat, and full of Pompey’s return to the fold and
the triumph of the conservatives. Titus felt crushed in that house, as
if he had been a child again. His grandfather’s friends were terrible;
they did nothing but crow over their new laws, which annulled Cæsar’s;
they explained to him, elaborately and often, what had been happening
in the centre of the world while he had been away; they patted him on
the back and condoled with him for having wasted so much time on this
unsatisfactory Gallic war, which would never come to an end under that
incompetent general. “If Pompey had been in command, now----” “Or my
dear old friend Lucullus----” “Pompey would have had the whole place
securely annexed by now, bringing in money to the state, instead of
taking it out.” Titus found it was quite useless to say anything; these
old men could never understand what war with a free nation meant--they
thought only in terms of the conquest of crumbling Asiatic kingdoms; so
he shrugged his shoulders and let them talk; he did not feel alive
enough to do anything else. For a time he saw something of a new group,
men of his own age, or younger, poets and philosophers and what not;
many of them in the old days had known Catullus, and like him they were
adventuring along strange, un-Roman paths. But they found Titus a little
too heavy for their taste: war had clipped the wings of his youth, he
would never any more be able to fly with them to lyric heights; he could
not see, as they did, the vast importance of a new metre or a new
Eastern religion; he could not spend hours looking for the _mot juste_.
They dropped him quite soon, and he was not altogether sorry.
He turned to Æmilia; he thought of his marriage as peace and quiet and
the warm hearth, a soft place to drop into after all this fretting, out
of the world at last, the best way to forget. She was young and shy and
slender with black hair, coiled and pinned, and drooping eyes; she would
hardly speak to him at first. Sometimes he could not help comparing her
with the strong, full-breasted Gallic women; this girl, in her straight,
clinging silks, could never run beside a horse, nor swim against a
foaming current, nor stand in her doorway with a spear, threatening the
soldiers. Nor could this little shoulder pillow a tired man’s head,
these unskilled fingers and mouth and body set him at rest and make him
fit to work again. Æmilia would obey her husband, never take the lead
herself, always put the responsibility on him: and he wanted so much to
do nothing! Almost Titus could have wished his grandfather had chosen
him a wife out of this new set in the Capital, some one who was less of
a lady and more of a woman: what did he care if she was unfaithful so
long as she could sometimes give him back his old, untroubled soul? But
there it was. And he married her with great ceremony; his grandfather’s
friends were all there, and one or two of the young Italian group, but
Quintus Velanius was still in Gaul, there was no one he really cared for
in all the procession--except Lerrys and Dith.
He had been glad to see those two; he had kissed Lerrys and nearly
kissed Dith: they were so like they had always been! He told them how
Meromic had gone; Lerrys had said very little in answer, and that
clearly not what he was thinking; only he had bitten his hand so that it
bled, because of his own friend Meromic, gone, too late of course, and
alone. And Dith thought, with some little satisfaction, that the Gaul
had only showed himself a double fool, first for staying and now for
going, but wished him luck all the same, and missed him--how full of
strangers Rome was still, for all he had been there months!
Coisha had a tiny red-haired baby: “A little Gaul,” said Titus, touching
its soft, wrinkled fist, and let them call it after him. Æmilia
interested herself delicately in it, and even made it a little coat,
which Coisha admired, without quite approving. Titus always found it
rather odd and inappropriate to see Lerrys with the baby.
About a month after his marriage he got orders to go North again: the
tribes were up. His first thought was that Meromic was going to fight
after all. Caius Barrus would have liked to go to Pompey and arrange
matters so that his grandson should stay at home, but Titus wanted to
go. Æmilia cried, and he comforted her as he might have a child, and
kissed her good-bye; and Lerrys kissed good-bye to Coisha and his little
son. Soon they were on the wintry road to Gaul; for the first day or two
both husbands felt a little unhappy and uprooted, but after a week they
were back to the old ways, with some laughter and much remembering of
Meromic. Dith was useful, and he grew happier every mile they went
towards war; if he had to be a slave, at least it was better to follow a
fighting-man, to be dealing with arms and horses again, and not to have
to speak low and behave decently, and wait at table among a lot of
Greeks!
Cæsar was angry; he made up his mind that this must be the end; he moved
his legions across Gaul as if they had been his own lightning thoughts,
not common men. There was no great army to fight against this time, no
one general; it was a case of breaking up the armed bands, killing or
scattering the chiefs, making prisoners in every village and family,
taking every one by surprise, doing it all with extraordinary speed and
leaving the Cantons gasping and submissive. But it was a gloomy business
crushing out these last sparks of liberty; there was no glory nor
excitement in it, and Titus found himself being haunted by hopeless
faces of conquered Gauls: nonsense, of course--wasn’t he doing Cæsar’s
work?--but there was nothing else to think about now, no one to talk to
and drive it all out of his head; he had tried talking to Lerrys, but it
wasn’t much use, not when it was anything that really mattered. And
there was rain almost all the time, drenching rain and sleet, and his
horse slipping on the clay banks; and all the time he was afraid of
finding Meromic.
But Meromic was far to the South, with Lucter’s army; he and Caltane
went about together now, and he was glad of it; he did not care to be
alone much these days, and he was always happiest when there was
fighting to do. He liked the longer daylight: it had been winter
evenings that made him want his friends most. March came with violets on
the banks, and he looked back past those four years to Spring along his
own coast when Fiommar and he had gone out together snaring rabbits or
scrambling about the cliffs, and had smelt the new air and praised all
the Gods for it.
The life was not bad on the whole; they went from one district to
another under the old standards of the tribes; where they got no welcome
they plundered, and perhaps burnt the chief’s house. At first they had
always been welcome, but latterly there had been a change: Rome could
protect her friends or suppliants, and often Lucter and his people were
put off with fair words till the legion came and they found their way
barred. They did not care to fight battles, but whenever possible they
would make a surprise attack, ambush a cohort on the march, or revenge
themselves on an unfriendly town. And there was drinking and singing,
and they had women with them or carried them off after a raid; they had
plenty to eat, and good horses, sometimes they hunted and sometimes they
had races where a man would lay heavy odds--his life perhaps, or his
liberty--on his horse winning; they were always quarrelling, and two of
them would fight it out with sword and dagger in front of the chiefs,
while the drinkers looked on and cheered; and wherever they went they
made the country folk work for them.
But it didn’t do to think too much about it, as Caltane did, or to
compare it with old days when the whole of Gaul was up and armed and
eager behind Vercingetorix, days when they had followed the white star
of freedom and every man was pledged to ride through Cæsar’s lines, when
they were all together, one nation, one hope, one goal! Lucter had known
it, and many of the army; now they had fallen to this. And there was no
hope for the future; they had to be living in the present all the time,
and that grows to be a strain. For the first few months Meromic had
thought, and Caltane had sometimes thought, that Gaul might yet be free
and Vercingetorix might yet be brought back in triumph; so many of the
old leaders were alive; so many of the tribes were struggling hard
against their bonds. But one after another the risings were put down;
the Romans were everywhere. And Lucter’s men grew to think of themselves
not as a national army driving out the invader, but as rebels up against
a fixed and solid government. And there was much divided counsel; no
chief trusted another; Lucter could never be sure whether, just at the
last moment, a hundred of his men might not refuse to follow him; he was
certain of Drappes, but never of the rest; it was all very
disheartening.
Every day they were joined by men on the run, fugitives, often, from the
Bellovaci, that Northern people who were too proud to send help to
Vercingetorix and now had tried to face Cæsar alone! They had been
beaten--how could it be otherwise? Correus, their leader, was dead,
caught in a trap he had set himself for the Romans. One of these
new-comers had told it all to Meromic: here was the wood and here were
the swollen rivers, here was the great water meadow where the legions
had broken their attack and turned on them and hunted them up and down.
He himself had reached the bank with an arrow in his neck, and dived and
swum under water with his armour dragging at him, and from the other
side he had seen Correus, who would not yield, swinging his axe and
shouting to his men to come back: but they were dead or flying for their
lives--“I couldn’t face that river again,” said the teller; “besides,
I’d lost my shield. And he--he wounded any man who came near him, he was
a wild bull among a pack of dogs; but at last, when they saw he was not
to be taken alive, they threw their spears and killed him and took his
armour. And I am hoping now that your general will lead me to revenge
him.” But Meromic said, “You’ll never get your vengeance. It’s always
too late.”
Titus Barrus had been in that fight too; and later, when the conquered
Bellovaci sent in their submission with many excuses, his work had been
to deal gently with the hostages, young children perhaps, who were
brought in white and terrified, thinking they were going to be eaten by
ogres. And he or Lerrys or Dith would sometimes ask one of the prisoners
if they had heard of a man called Meromic; but they never found out
anything. Dith was getting restless; these men of the North were very
like Britons, the language and customs were much the same; he talked to
Lerrys, but Lerrys was very loyal to Titus Barrus, more than ever now
that he had left a wife and child in Rome. Dith wished he could see
Meromic again--he’d understand; Dith was rather bad at making up his
mind, he liked to find an easy path somewhere between two opposites--a
misty sort of mind, but he came from a misty country.
Many of the other tribes had been waiting to see what would happen to
the Bellovaci; now they, too, sent their submission and hostages. But
some of the chiefs had still to be dealt with, and most of all Ambiorix,
the man who had betrayed to death the Roman army at Atuatuca, always the
mischief-maker, always the raiser of revolt; there could be no mercy for
him. Nor for his people when Cæsar found he was not to be caught. There
were only a few of them left after last time; they made no resistance,
they were hunted like rats from one hole to another; the villages were
burnt, and the corn-stacks that should have fed them in summer. But not
many escaped to starve; the luckiest might be taken in as slaves among
tribes across the borders, but the soldiers were not in the mood to keep
their prisoners. This was not war, but reprisals--the thing most
sickening to any decent man. Titus saw more horrors in a month of this
than in a year of battles. He got to know just how quickly the blazing
thatch pours off the cottage roof into a great bonfire in front of the
door, just how the women inside scream and scream above the crackling
roar, just how a child bursts through with hair and clothes alight, and
then collapses and dies at the soldiers’ feet: all this is bad for the
memory.
And day after day they spent hunting Ambiorix through the green woods of
spring; Titus had his heart in his mouth every time he saw his men with
a prisoner; however much the people ran from them, now and then one
would be caught, an old, sick man, perhaps, or some half-crazy woman;
sometimes they wouldn’t tell, more often they knew nothing, but usually
they were made to speak before they died. Titus had very little
authority over his men in these ways; it was not his fault, and they
would have followed him to any attack; but discipline didn’t go more
than a certain way down, and among them were one or two who had been
with Sabinus in that ghastly time when they had trusted twice to an oath
of Ambiorix, and almost the whole legion, officers and men, had been cut
to pieces, penned into the valley with no mercy given by the Gauls. So
Titus would get as far off as he could and try not to hear the cries.
There were days when his grandfather would have been perfectly satisfied
to know what he thought of Cæsar. But orders must be carried out.
Lerrys tried very hard to help; he knew all the time just what Meromic
would have done, how he could have made Titus forget it for a little,
but Lerrys was dumb, he couldn’t do it himself. He was so anxious to
make up for his lost friend that he paid no attention to Dith; and Dith
had found out that the sea was not so far, that there were boats trading
to Britain ... and Dith took food in a bundle, and stole some of his
master’s money; early in the morning he went off, guiding himself by the
sun among the tangled woods. In every little clearing the grass was
thick and damp and dark green with its young sap; the birds sang among
the hazels, and Dith picked his way in and out of the branches, as wild
and quiet as a fox. He came on a path from one burnt-out village to
another and trotted along it, swinging his bundle and listening for any
noises from behind. And suddenly he heard a horse and crouched back
among the brushwood to hide. The horse went by him, blowing and
sweating, at a staggering gallop that dropped to a trot when it was not
spurred. The man on its back had his eyes fixed in front of him; he
spoke aloud in a strained, hoarse voice: “Get on, men, get on,” but
there was no one with him; his helmet had fallen off and there were
twigs stuck in his hair and beard; his armour was rusting on him, his
scabbardless sword was fastened through a twist in his belt, his cloak
was a torn, dirty rag round his neck. But Dith knew who it was and
followed him to where the path divided and saw him plunge down the
right-hand one and disappear; only the shaking boughs far ahead showed
where Ambiorix had gone.
There were hoof-marks in either path, some that looked almost as new on
the left-hand one. Dith was looking at them when all at once he heard
more horses, fresh ones, and then a Roman voice; he began to crawl among
the bushes again, but he could tell by the sounds that the pursuers were
coming through the wood at each side of the path: better at least not to
be caught hiding, he thought, and went back and stood at the fork of the
ways and waved his arm when the horsemen came in sight.
“Which way?” cried the first.
“There, not ten minutes ago!” and he pointed up the left-hand track.
They galloped on in wild pursuit and Dith hoped he might be done with
them; but then another man came up, on a lame horse; Dith repeated his
story.
“Oh, curse my luck!” grumbled the man. “They’ll get him, and I’m out of
it with this devil of a mare of mine!” He dismounted, and saw it was the
Tribune’s slave he was speaking to: “Why, Dith! What are you doing so
far from camp?”
“Oh,” said Dith, “I went out to get wood; I was told not to cut it too
near camp because you wanted it all, and I went on and then I got lost.”
“Lost? I thought you islanders never got lost.” The man looked at him
suspiciously. “Well, anyhow you can come back to camp with me. Here,
carry my pack! The mare’s got too much as it is.” And back to camp he
had to go with the pack on his shoulder and black anger in his heart.
Fortunately the man was in too bad a temper to ask him what he’d done
with the wood till they’d gone too far to go back to where he said it
was. It took them nearly four hours with the limping mare; half-way back
the soldier who had been muttering to himself about his bad luck,
suddenly glared down at Dith with an oath: “And you expect me to believe
you, you----!”
Dith didn’t answer and the soldier unfastened the reins from the bit and
made him stand against a tree and beat him with the buckle end. Then
they went on again, and Dith carried the pack under his arm so that it
shouldn’t rub against his sore back.
As they got to the camp the others caught them up with their horses
tired out; they were empty-handed and they looked very grim at Dith; he
would have liked to get away quietly to his master’s tent, but they made
him carry the pack along to their quarters, and stood round him.
“Can I go?” he asked.
“Not till we’ve done with you,” said one. “You told us the wrong
path--we’d have got him in another mile! Yes, you Briton, that’s the
sort of trick you play us: we’ll teach you to do it again!”
“I didn’t!” cried Dith, but no one believed him; he fell on his knees,
still denying, terrified of these angry soldiers; if only he could get
safe away he’d stand anything from his master or Lerrys! One of them
dragged him off by the iron collar round his neck to the space behind
the tents where the flies were buzzing over the cooking pots.
The first one kicked him with his nailed boots: “Did you tell us the
wrong way?”
“No!”
Then the second, and the third, and all of them; but he went on saying
no because he knew they’d kill him if he said yes. He crouched down,
trying to shield his head, but they pulled his arms away; he looked
round desperately, he thought he saw--he yelled: “Lerrys!” And Lerrys
came and stood over him, demanding explanations from the soldiers.
One of them told and “You’d better leave him to us, Lerrys. He was
running away; we’ll save you the trouble of dealing with him!”
Dith caught hold of Lerrys: “I wasn’t! I got lost! You _told_ me to cut
wood well away from the camp!”
“Of course I did. Here, let him alone. I tell you, I should know if he
was likely to be running away! Dith, get up and come with me.”
Dith scrambled to his feet, but one of the soldiers grabbed him: “Oh no,
you don’t!”
“Now, what is the use of that?” protested Lerrys, trying to calm them
down. “Do you think his master’s going to be pleased if he’s knocked
about till he’s useless? Listen, I’ll find out myself what happened, and
if all’s not right I’ll send him back to you. Isn’t that fair?”
The men consulted for a moment: “Well, seeing he belongs to the
Tribune----” And Lerrys took Dith off; the Briton picked up the bundle
with the stolen money and food in it; Lerrys saw him do it.
They said nothing till they were back at the tent; then Lerrys looked at
him sternly: “Dith, you liar, you may thank me for saving your life.
What’s in that bundle?” Dith handed it over silently; Lerrys undid it
and found the coins, his eyebrows went up: “So. Dith, you might be
crucified for this.”
“But you won’t tell him?” Dith looked imploringly at Lerrys, who thought
with a start that so might he himself have been five years back.
“I don’t think so. But I’m not sure: your stealing the money. Now of all
times. You’ll have to take your punishment.”
“What will it be?”
Lerrys put back the money before he answered. “I’ve got to stop this
happening again. About the other thing: did you tell them the wrong
road?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because--oh well, I’ve fought against the Romans.”
“I see. So have I.”
“Longer ago. Oh, Lerrys, what are you going to do with me?”
“The soldiers would like you back.”
“Don’t! Lerrys, I’ll swear never to try it again. By the Arrow of the
Shining One. You know that’s not an oath one breaks.”
“Very well. I’ll take it. You’d better get on with your work or you
won’t have it finished by this evening. I must go and talk to the
soldiers.” He went out and Dith started making up the fire, crying and
cursing and thinking of green paths through the woods that went north to
the coast. But Titus Barrus never knew what had happened and Dith never
saw Britain again. And Ambiorix escaped; but his people paid for it.
The fate of the Eburones hung over some of the other tribes; the Camutes
were spared on condition that they found and gave up Gutuatros, the man
who had started the rising sixteen months ago by the murder of Roman
citizens at Cenabum. For a time he hid among friends, but they were so
anxious to save themselves and their wives and children, that very soon
he was betrayed, caught, and handed over mercilessly to the Roman
General. Titus was one of the officers who stood by at the mock trial
they held; he knew, and the prisoner knew, and every one knew, what the
end must be. He supposed it was necessary, but he hated it all the same:
the man must be killed, only why not do it straightforwardly without all
these witnesses and accusers and ceremony, this long dragging out of the
hours, all to impress the Gauls with the justice and mercy of the
conqueror! He doubted whether it was doing that. Gutuatros himself was
wearing out visibly under the strain; at first he had stood straight and
proudly before the Proconsul, a chained lion; but with the end of the
day and the doom approaching, he began to lose his nerve, his shoulders
twitched, he looked in agony from one face to another, his hand was at
his mouth, at his throat, at his forehead. At last he was led out in
front of the prætorium, into the central way through the camp, which
ran east and west; he turned his head once towards the setting sun.
There was a thin birch-tree growing at the side of the way, though most
of the trees had been cut down; every little leaf was gold-touched in
the glow; Titus looked up at it, away from the crowd, the space in the
middle, the two posts driven into the ground with the collar between
them.
They had him stripped, with his neck and wrists in the collar, this man
who had commanded thousands; once there he could not flinch from the
angry cries of the legions, could not look again at the sun, could not
bite his hand to stop himself screaming under the rods. Titus edged
away, wanting not to listen to the sounds, wanting to keep his eyes
fixed on the tree. Only, now and again, he felt he had to see: the
officers round him were flushed or white, Cæsar was speaking to his
secretary, and in the middle there was more blood, the posts shook at
every blow, the man was moaning like a sick animal. Another ten minutes:
the sun was in the top of the birch-tree, there was a little dust
blowing. The rods were falling still and the body jerked and twisted
under them, but the eyes were shut, the head and hands drooped in the
collar, no sound came from the lips. The collar was undone, the
blood-streaked thing was taken out and laid with its neck on the block;
the axe came over with a clear sweep and there were shouts from the
soldiers. Quintus Velanius whispered to Titus, “Well?”
“So long as this is the last. I can’t stand much more. Cæsar should
finish with it.”
“I hope so. It saves the rest of the tribe, perhaps.”
“My men were yelling for it last night: they like it better than the
Games. It’s hard to say what really decided Cæsar.”
The group of officers broke up and went off their own ways; at the gate
of the camp Titus saw two young Gauls standing together, one with his
cloak up to his mouth. He would have spoken friendly to them, anything
to bring back ordinary life again, but Quintus laid a hand on his arm:
“Don’t speak, Titus: they’re his sons.” Then they saw a messenger riding
fast, and wondered where he came from: “Perhaps from the south.”
“He might be; they say that siege is a hard business for Caninius.”
“Uxeldun must be a strong town.”
“Yes. Cæsar will have to go there himself, or it’ll drag on till
Autumn.”
“Autumn.... I wonder what we shall be doing then. Come out with me as
far as the river, Quintus.”
“God, what an evening!”
“Isn’t it? Look, there’s one star----”
It was nearly two months before when Lucter and Drappes, with their own
men and a collection of fugitives from all parts, had gone south to raid
the Province; Caninius had followed them hard, and they dared not risk a
battle. But Lucter was in his own country; he turned towards Uxeldun,
clearing the farms as he went, of cattle and corn, and had his army
secure there before Caninius could catch him up. Uxeldun was built along
the top of a hill; on two sides the rocks went sheer down to the plain,
on the other there was a steep slope, leading down past a deep, constant
spring to a burn in a narrow glen full of bushes. Here, before these
wars, Lucter had been over-lord, and now the townspeople welcomed him
back with cheers and flowers, though they knew well that this would mean
a siege, and trouble, and perhaps death, to them and their households.
And Caninius settled down in three camps, and waited to starve the town.
Lucter had been with Vercingetorix; Lucter knew what starving a town
meant. He and Drappes went out by a secret way down the rocks, with all
but two thousand of their men; they got in corn from all over the
country, and the Romans never knew: none of the country folk would
betray their old lord. It had to be brought back to the town by night on
little mules that picked their sure-footed way along the cliffs; but the
Roman outposts heard them, and told Caninius. Lucter was with the mules;
he escaped, dropping from ledge to ledge, hiding in cracks among the
fern, watching the Roman soldiers hunting for him with drawn swords; but
there was no getting back to the town. The men who were with him were
almost all killed; Gell fought till his sword broke off at the hilt, and
then he would have surrendered; he knelt to them, pleading, with
outstretched hands, but they pushed him over the edge of the cliff with
their spears, and he broke his back thirty feet below over a sharp rock.
Drappes and his men were attacked too, and taken by surprise; this time
the Romans took some prisoners, Drappes among them wounded in a dozen
places; Caninius kept him safe and had his wounds seen to, waiting for
Cæsar to come.
The news was shouted up to the town by Roman soldiers; the leaders of
the two thousand held a council on it; there was amply enough corn and
cattle left for them, now they were so few, but they were terribly
disheartened, and some were for surrendering at once, on such terms as
they could get, before Cæsar himself should come. Caltane spoke urging
them to defend the place at all costs; they might yet tire the Romans
out, and Lucter, perhaps, could raise another army to relieve them;
besides, if they did surrender, what was left to them? He was thinking
himself of Curdun in ruins, and many of the others were homeless too. So
it was no surrender, and days went by, and weeks, and at last they heard
that Cæsar was on the way--at any rate they were not despised! Meromic
watched the new legions marching in, one clear evening, and thought: is
he there, shall I see him? and wished his old life would leave him
alone, and yet somehow hoped, and yet somehow feared....