‘Kill them?’ The centurion looked uncertainly at the villagers, many of whom were wailing loudly. ‘Kill them all?’

‘That’s what I said,’ Vitellius snapped, and then sneered. ‘Or haven’t you got the stomach for it?’

‘No, sir!’ The centurion seemed surprised. ‘Just think it’d be a bit time-consuming to kill them all, sir.’

‘Then you’ll just have to do it quickly.’

‘Sir!’ Cato interrupted. ‘Message for you, sir! From Macro.’

‘What the hell is this, soldier?’ Vitellius shouted. ‘How dare you come up and yell at me as if I was some market-stall trader! Now, you make your report properly!’

‘Excuse me, sir.’ The centurion coughed. ‘But may I carry on?’

‘What? Oh yes. You’ve got your orders. Get moving.’ Vitellius nodded curtly at Cato. ‘Now you.’

‘Sir. Centurion Macro begs to report that he is holding the other gate and—’

‘Casualties?’

‘About twenty, sir. He has seventy effectives left, sir. The centurion begs to request if you have any orders for him, sir.’

‘Orders?’ Vitellius repeated vaguely. ‘Right then. You tell him he must hold the gate. We’ve secured the walls and the interior of the village. Now we’ve got to hold out until help arrives.’ Vitellius looked up at the slowly greying sky. ‘We’re expected back before dark. The legate will set out as soon as he realises we’re in some kind of trouble. If we’re lucky, that’ll be tomorrow morning. Still, we’re better off here than in that forest.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Cato agreed wholeheartedly.

‘You tell Macro what the situation is, and that he is to hold the gate at all costs until relieved. Do you understand me, optio?’

Cato nodded.

‘Now go.’

Under The Eagle

Chapter Nine

Around the German village the day gradually dimmed into the smudged grey of approaching dusk. Once the fighting had died down, the physical heat and frenzied mental preoccupation of battle drained away and the legionaries standing to on the wall shivered in the freezing winter gloom. To make matters worse, snow had begun to fall, large flakes that drifted down lazily in the still air. The initial ambush had failed and now the Germans withdrew out of javelin range and most stood hurling abuse at the village in their harsh tongue. Others busied themselves in constructing faggots and lopping branches off young pine trees to make crude scaling ladders. The Roman defenders watched anxiously from the wall, occasionally sparing hopeless glances in the direction of the Second’s fortress, a mere eight miles away. More ominously, the legionaries of the Sixth century could see that a substantial tree had been felled nearby and was well on the way to being converted into a battering ram.

Macro had not been idle either. He had ordered some men to pile small rocks on the wall to supplement the few remaining javelins and another group to pile heavier rocks and earth against the rear of the village gates to absorb the impact of the ram. These were standard counter-measures but if the Germans managed to fully co-ordinate their attack then the thin line of Romans manning the village wall would inevitably be overrun, as Macro patiently explained to his young optio while the latter bound the gash on Macro’s forearm.