plank road and further securing the crucial joints between the last craft that had been inserted.
The full moon shone bright and peaceful, rising high south of the bridge and casting beautiful shadows and glimmers the length of the river, a pale, liquid light that reflected almost effervescent on the water, illuminating its course for miles in either direction.
It was while peering at the moon's reflected gleam, its long white tail rippling playfully in the gently swaying surface, that I saw them.
Far upstream, they appeared almost as waves or shadows, perhaps merely the strange diversions of currents caused by the underwater shifting of sandbars or the remains of a bevy of stumps. I stared at them absentmindedly for a time, until I noticed that they were not stationary, but rather drifting steadily closer. A flotilla of boats perhaps? No, not boats, for they rode too low in the water. I strode out onto the bridge and trotted along the grain barge to the next vessel, which was not encumbered by the large warehouses obstructing my view upstream. Arriving at the end of the structures, I looked again.
They were closer now, not more than a half mile distant. Something more than ripples but less than ships, bearing down on the bridge with the relentless speed of the river's current. I looked around somewhat nervously, and seized the arm of a nearby centurion. He looked at me with irritation, but I merely pointed to the middle of the river upstream of the bridge. He followed the direction of my finger, and his expression changed from annoyance, to questioning, and finally to complete understanding — and fear. Suddenly he whirled, stepping onto the plank road and racing along the boards to the middle of the bridge.
'Logs!' he cried. This produced no response from anyone, as the city and bridge were surrounded by logs. 'Bearing down from upstream!' he shouted. 'Clear the bridge! Clear the bridge!'
I looked back upstream. Logs, enormous specimens, seven, eight, and nine feet across, were riding low and menacingly in the water like huge marauding sea creatures, bearing down upon the very center of the bridge with all the speed the irrepressible river could offer. Thirty of them, no, fifty, a hundred in all, on a front a hundred yards wide, in perfect true to the current, pointed like arrows at the heart of Barbatio's structure. Now the din rose as men saw them coming, and as they realized the consequences of being on the bridge when the massive missiles struck. Soldiers and carpenters dropped their tools where they stood, tossing planks to the side or into the water, rushing forward or back, some on the far end losing their heads and running back to the near side so as not to be stranded away from the Roman encampment. Men pushed and jostled, tripping over one another and bottlenecking at unfinished sections of the planking, all eyes fixed upstream at the silent black shadows bearing down on them.
The initial impact caused a sickening crunch, and a shudder snaked through the structure from center to ends, like a rope that has been sharply snapped. Timbers groaned and creaked as the huge logs smashed ponderously into the vertical pilings, loosening them like tent stakes kicked from the ground. As the logs hit, the force of the current rotated them sideways, and their rear ends swung around, slamming their full length and weight against the slender ties of the bridge.
But that was all. After the shudder and groan — silence. The bridge had held, barely, although it was bowing out dangerously where several of the support pilings had been uprooted. Yet still the bridge held! The men on both ends broke into a spontaneous cheer of relief, echoing across the silent river — yet their jubilation was short- lived.
At first I thought it could only be shadows, the trick plays of moonlight on overwrought eyes. But pushing my way through the crowds of men to the front closest to the center, I soon realized I was mistaken.
'Barbarians!' someone shouted. 'It's the Alemanni!'
It was pandemonium. I stood rooted to the spot as the unarmed men behind me rushed again to the ends of the bridge for safety. First dozens, then hundreds of dark, shadowy figures, their naked bodies painted black with grease, clambered over the logs under which they had been hiding, some still clutching the hollow reeds through which they had been breathing as they had floated beneath and beside the missiles they had aimed at the bridge. Working rapidly and nimbly, they drew long knives and swords from their belts, and with trained strokes began hacking at the support ropes strung between the pilings, sawing at the lashings linking together the rafts and barges, using sticks and levers to pry up the planks that had been so painstakingly smoothed, fitted, and installed.
Within moments the middle of the bridge had been broken, and the first loosened vessel began floating away down the stream. With the structural tension released, the two ragged ends in the middle also began bowing out, and as the surface current began rushing through the breach, the jam of logs too began exerting inexorable pressure on the weak spot that had been opened.
Another cry rose up from Barbatio's men, this one of outrage at seeing their work destroyed by a handful of greased apes. With a roar that was echoed by their counterparts on the left bank, men seized tools lying about — axes and adzes, pry bars, boards, even the occasional sword or bow, and rushed in an angry mob toward the middle of the bridge, which was now swaying ominously, the ragged ends drifting steadily away from the linear into a curve down the stream.
'Don't let them get away!' I heard someone cry, and looking up I saw an officer in full dress armor bearing a crimson cloak — General Barbatio. 'Seize those criminals!'
But the Alemanni had seen us coming. With white smiles glowing eerily in the moonlight from their blackened faces, they pried and slashed at the ropes until just before the lead Roman carpenters, wielding woodcutting tools, had reached their position. Then, each one pausing only long enough to seize a loosened plank, they leaped back into the water — this time downstream of the bridge — lay with their bellies flat on the broad boards beneath them, and serenely paddled off with the current, the moonlight reflecting for a long while on their glistening backs, as the Romans raged impotently on their now broken and wandering bridge.
Those who receive a second chance at life are often far tougher for it. Yet the first failure still rankles.
Although not a man had been killed or even injured on either side, the bridge had been utterly destroyed but for a few sad-looking vessels on either end. The planed planks that hung off their bows to link with the craft ahead of them in line now protruded forlornly like the tumescent tongues of the dead, and soldiers and engineers took turns standing on the end to stare with melancholy down the river whence the bridge's middle sections had disappeared. On the far side, across the immense distance now remaining to be spanned again, equal numbers of frustrated soldiers gathered. Barbatio was furious. Plans for the crossing had been set back weeks, for the timber required to build new rafts and road planks now had to be hauled considerably farther across the denuded slopes surrounding the encampment.
In the end, the army swallowed hard and did what Roman armies do best: cinched its belt, flexed its muscles, and hunkered down for more.
Barbatio was determined that a handful of Alemanni lumberjacks and suicide swimmers would not get the best of his legions, and in this regard he had become much wiser: Before commencing the rebuilding of the bridge, he posted detachments of soldiers every mile upstream for five miles, each outpost supplied with a quantity of small rafts and dinghies. These were assigned the duty of intercepting any further flurries of floating log missiles the barbarians might send down. In fact, Barbatio's instincts were correct on this score, for on three separate occasions, all in the dead of night, we were awakened by breathless runners reporting that flotillas of logs had been sighted upstream and that the Roman interceptors were at that very moment paddling furiously into the current with their pikes and ropes to seize the logs and guide them ashore before further damage could be wreaked.
On all three occasions, Barbatio sent additional troops from the camp racing into the water with their own rafts to head off any logs that might have slipped past their brethren upstream. For this very reason, a narrow gap the width of perhaps two or three vessels was left in the middle of the newly constructed bridge until the last moment, as an opening through which any rogue logs that might have escaped could be guided without damaging the existing span. But the men upstream performed their tasks efficiently, indeed magnificently. No log made its way through to the bridge.
Strangely enough, however, not a single black-greased, reed-breathing barbarian was ever caught; unlike the first destructive volley, the three subsequent releases of logs from upstream were all unmanned, as if the Alemanni were actually expecting us to counter their efforts on these occasions. I had my suspicions as to their motives, but I held my tongue in the midst of the general exuberance and backslapping that reigned in the camp after each attempt had been successfully turned back. Why spoil the party? Besides, Barbatio had refused all my requests for an interview, though he had no objection to my lodging in the barracks and even taking meals in the staff headquarters with his officers. I lingered in camp to witness the final crossing before reporting back to Julian.
