Marcus: the Young Centurion

by George Manville Fenn

“What!” growled the old soldier.

“You seemed so lame and in such pain. I don’t know what has become of our chariot, but as that’s gone you ought to be in one of the litters carried by the slaves.”

“Wha–a–at!” growled the old soldier, making the interjection as long in its utterance as half a dozen six-syllabled words. “Well, I do call this hard! The knocking about you have had must have got into your head, my lad, and upset your eyes. Why, you can’t see a bit!”

“What do you mean?” cried Marcus.

“Why, this, boy. When I began to march after that young cockerel had brought the orders, I was so stiff that I could hardly put one leg before the other; but the very news of you being appointed to take your place in one of the leading cohorts of the army has acted like salve, and all my stiffness is as good as gone. Carried in a litter by slaves! Me! Do I look the sort of fellow who wants carrying in a litter like a sick woman? Bah! Why, before we get far on the march we shall have the enemy closing in on all sides, and the fight beginning.”

“Think so, Serge?”

“Yes, my boy. We have got our work cut out, for they’ll never believe till it’s knocked into them that we are not making a retreat. Me in a litter!” he growled. “Just you wait a bit, and I shall be showing that I have got a little fighting left in me.”

Serge proved his words the very next day, when, after many hours’ marching painfully in the ranks, pretty close to where his young master had been appointed a junior officer, and been received by the men with cheers, a desperate attack was made upon this, the advance guard, by a perfect crowd of fierce Gallic warriors made up of the scattered remnants of the beaten army, who came down upon the marching cohort like the sea upon some massive rock. So fierce was the onslaught that though the Roman ranks remained comparatively unbroken, they were pressed back by the sheer weight of their enemies, but only to recoil, and as they advanced to recover their lost ground, it was over the bodies of some of their wounded men, and to Marcus’ horror he found himself once more called upon to dash forward to another’s help. This time, however, it was not blindly and in the dusk, for a shiver of dread ran through him, knowing how crippled his old companion was, when he saw that Serge was one of those who had been unable to keep his place in the rank when the Romans were driven back, and that now he was defending himself and striving to hold his own against the attack of three of the Gauls. Tearing off his helmet, as if it were an incumbrance, and making his short sword flash through the air, Marcus rushed to his old companion’s help, but too late to save him being hurled heavily to the ground, while, ready as he was to contend against ordinary weapons, this barbaric method of attack confused and puzzled him. One of his half-nude enemies made as if to flinch from a coming blow, and then sprang up, hurling something through the air, and in an instant the boy found himself entangled in the long cord of strips of hide, which was dragged tight above his arms and crippled the blow he would have struck, while as he was jerked round the Gaul’s companions flung themselves upon his back, and for the moment he was prisoner in his turn.

The struggle that followed was brief, for the blade Marcus wielded was that in which old Serge had taken pride, feeling as he did that his master’s son should be armed with a weapon that was keenest of the keen. Fortunately, too, the aim of the enemy was to make a prisoner of the well-caparisoned young Roman, and not a slay, so that Marcus, in spite of the way in which his arms were dragged to his side, was able to turn the point of his sword upward, and give one thrust between the cord and his breast, when the rope parted like tinder upon the razor-like edge, and his enemies started back from the sweep of the terrible blade he whirled above his head.

Staggered for the moment, they were preparing for a fresh attack when Serge, uttering a deep growl like a wounded lion, sprang to his feet, after snatching his sword from where it lay.