Winter's Blossom: The Seasons of Arthur

Chapter 26

Those who have never been to war just cannot understand it. They cannot comprehend it's horror. People seem to believe that you fight a battle, win a victory and then the celebrating begins, and those who are weary can finally have a chance to rest.

The truth is there is no immediate celebration nor rest after battle. There is just work. Sentries still have to be set. The wounded dealt with. Men chase fugitives. Graves are dug. Shelters are made. Fires. The enemy to be dealt with, questioned. The prisoners interred, those lightly wounded interred and the badly wounded dispatched. The battle may be over but the screaming does not stop, sometimes not for days.

We did sleep though, at least eventually. You never get a full night's sleep on campaign, there are always sentry duties to perform. The Votadini at least were giving a little to rest. I did not though. My band of warriors had taken six dead and seven wounded, three of those seriously. Cador had also been wounded gravely with an axe wound that had split apart his shoulder, but his father was hopeful of a recovery.

'He may lose his arm.' I warned him.

'He will be fine.' Bagdamagus grunted with apparent carelessness. We both watched as a warrior padded the wound with moss before bandaging it. I looked across at the grizzled old warrior, amazed at such callousness towards his own son, but I saw the worry etched in the furrows of his brow. I wondered at the pride of a man who refused to show even a fear for his son. I felt heartsick enough for my men. I thought about the six men who had died, and those who had been wounded. None of them complained. Well, not about being wounded anyway. They cursed the Angle who did it, at themselves for being too slow with the counter or their shield. None of them blamed Owain for causing us to be fifty men facing an army six times our number. None of them blamed me, their commander. Their mates huddled around where they lay and mocked them in that way soldiers will mock literally everything. They howled at each other, provoking smiles from even the most ghastly wounded who would probably not make it through the night.

I flushed at their making fun of me, and turned away so that they could not see my embarrassment.

We camped overnight but we were allowed no rest in the morning. Owain had us up with the first pale light the preceded the dawn, the time when I had attacked the next morning. We stood in four rough lines that were disconnected squares around the camp, ready to retract into a tight square shape or swing our lines around to face an enemy. Men cursed Owain, tired and shivering as they stood, watching over the already defeated enemy. I silently cursed him too. I knew why Owain did it of course, he wanted to build good habit, but still I cursed him.

Throughout the night the scavengers had come to the battlefield. We woke to a host of dogs, birds, foxes, even two wolves tore at the bodies of the Angles. It was like the world was clearing itself up after the world man had made of it. Still, it turned the stomach. Would I, I wondered, on a battlefield hopefully in the distant future, be an animal's dinner? I found myself hoping childishly that I would be a feast for a wolf rather than carrion birds like crows or the gulls.

In the morning we buried our men. There is little point burying men on the day of the battlefield, because men will always die throughout the night, and the worst of my wounded, a man named Druidan, who had been pierced deep in the chest with a spear so that his ribs had broken and, evidenced by the hiss of his wound and the bubbling of blood on his lips, his lung had been punctured. He had clung to life as if desperate to see one more new day, but sometime during the night his rasping gasps of breath had stopped.

We had no priests with us and so Owain said a prayer over the dead. The men were gathered around the graves we hoped were deep enough to stop the scavenging animals, who lifted their heads from the dead men to watch us, as if marking where the graves were, where a future meal was buried. I only half listened to Owain. I felt guilty that men had died under my command, and indeed the only dead from our army had come from my men, so complete had been Owain's victory. My doubt etched at me. Did this reflect on my ability as a commander. No, I thrust it aside. It reflected the task that we had been given. I looked at Owain giving his sermon and had to suppress a sudden snort at the irony. Owain had as little belief as I did, and now here he was giving a sermon to a hundred and eighty men.