Chapter Nine

It was raining. Well that made a change, didn’t it? It was always raining in this “Britain”. What’s more, this particular night it was pitch black, foggy, freezing cold and it was raining. Sign up, they said. See the known World, they said. Lucius was a legionary, he’d been called up to the Roman army from his nice family home in Umbria. Where his upbringing had been in sunshine, with red wine, olive groves and dappled shade and warmth, he was now on this fog shrouded island where if it wasn’t raining it was blowing a gale and if the gale stopped blowing long enough the locals would turn up and try and either sell you something, or kill you. To be brutally honest he was sick and fed up with this backward stupid country and the natives who lived here. He couldn’t wait to get back to civilisation – central heating, slaves and people being forced to fight to the death for his entertainment. Now THAT’S civilisation. All these Durotriges seemed to be interested in was farming and fighting him and his colleagues. And so this particular evening, here was Lucius, some miles from Lindinis, in the middle of nowhere, standing as watch outside his cohort’s encampment as the rain hammered down on his helmet. The decurion had shouted at him to keep his eyes peeled for treacherous Britons. Well the decurion needn’t have worried, Lucius would have his revenge for this awful night, next time he ran into some local savages. He’d give ‘em what for, like they did at that last hill fort the other week. Admittedly it was quite small and only a farming community, but it had the capacity to have weapons of mass destruction (OK, pebbles) ready for an attack on unguarded Roman heads within 45 seconds. The World was now a safer place that they had massacred all the old people and sold the rest off into slavery. Lucius wasn’t scared of these barbarians. He was a Roman soldier, armed to the teeth and trained to the highest level in ways of killing and upsetting people in great quantities. Just to re-assure himself, Lucius practiced a couple of half hearted thrusts with his gladius sword at imaginary invaders. He’d like to see the barbarian swines who could get past him!
He blew in his hands to try and instill some warmth and stamped his feet. The wind howled once more round his bare legs and he cursed the day he had been brought to this island. Lucius supposed it was better than some of his colleagues who had ended up in the forests of Germanica with large spears stuck up their bottoms. But no one really spoke about that set back, or any of the other set backs the army ever encountered, the Roman Empire just liked to talk itself up, and so only victories were allowed to be mentioned.
Just at that moment, Lucius heard a noise. A crackling noise, slmost like someone moving through very dry foliage. He knew this couldn’t be true as there was nothing that could possibly be dry in Britain with the weather they were having. There it came again. Lucius drew his gladius from it’s scabbard and his eyes darted around him, but the surrounding darkness merely loomed back at him.
“Who goes there?” He yelled in the deepest, most frightening voice he could muster. He swallowed loudly and re-doubled his grip on the gladius. “Come on! Who’s there?” He shouted. Lucius thought he could make out a glow in the semi distance, a sort of ethereal glow, somewhere near the distant horizon – or was it just two inches from his nose? He just couldn’t tell, but it was getting bigger and the crackling sound was coming through constantly now. He was just about to call for the decurion when there was a loud buzzing sound and a distinct backwards popping noise and two figures suddenly hurtled out of nowhere and bumped into Lucius. One of them was wearing a large white helmet with wires coming out of it, and as they stumbled into Lucius, the white helmet connected heavily with Lucius’ chin and knocked him out cold. Drood looked down at the recumbent figure of the unconscious Roman legionary.
“Oh, nice one Bryan! You’ve managed to make us travel in time, but you’ve twatted a Roman.” Drood reached down and felt Lucius’ pulse, just to make sure he wasn’t dead. Bryan pulled the helmet off his head with some difficulty. Drood had his head back and was drinking in the falling rain, trying to get rid of the inevitable dehydration.
“Bloody hell!” Whispered Bryan, looking around. “We only bloody did it!” He whooped with delight. Drood looked round the darkness, but it was so foggy, wet and miserable you really could not see a thing.
“So where are we?” He looked towards Bryan, who was now similarly drinking in the rain water.
“Hulke” said Bryan, eventually. “Well, I assume that was where you were thinking of when you visualised somewhere in Roman times.” Drood nodded.
“I tried to visualise the green near the Priory which I suppose is this, but…” he gestured vaguely around him, “I’m just not used to seeing it without the Priory being here.” Bryan was looking at some of the readings in the small palm top information unit.
“Do you remember earlier, when we were at my house and you had a look at the Lethbridge book?” He asked of Drood. Drood nodded. “Well this little beauty of a time machine only seems to have picked up on some of the subconscious stuff in your little brain. Remember the first bizarre event at the Priory site mentioned in the Lethbridge book?” Bryan’s eyebrows were beginning their inevitable waggling session.
“Yeah, some legionary got spooked by an apparition and…” Drood’s voice tailed off as he realised what he was saying. His hand moved involuntarily to his mouth. “Shit!” He exclaimed. “Do you mean WE are the apparition that scared the Roman?” Bryan was nodding eagerly and the eyebrows were on full waggle mode.
“Seems inevitable!” he roared with laughter. Drood looked down at the figure of Lucius on the ground.
“Should we help him?” Asked Drood, softly. Bryan took a cursory look down at the Roman.
“Nah! Fuck him. Bloody Romans. Just the ancient world version of Tesco’s really. Don’t matter where you go you’re bound to find some evidence of them and they’re all the bloody same.” He began reading some figures from the information unit under his breath. “To be honest, the way his lot with Vespasian carried on down here I think we’d be right justified if we gave him a proper leathering while he’s down there.” From the darkness there was a bark/cry of something nearby. Possibly only a fox, but it could just as easily have been a wolf. Drood looked round nervously.
“I think I’ve seen enough of Roman Hulke to be honest, Bryan.” He shivered slightly and suddenly realised how cold and wet he was. He looked over at the information unit in Bryan’s hand. “So how do we get back?”
“Good question…” said Bryan, softly. “I’m not entirely sure, but if I put my helmet back on…” he did this as he mentioned it, then went back to intently studying the information unit in his hands. “Yep, we should be due for a chrono-displacement field opening up in the same place any second now…” They stood there in the rain and darkness. Nothing happened. Bryan tapped the information unit. Still nothing happened. Unknown to them, behind them on the wet ground, Lucius started stirring.
“You haven’t got a sodding clue, have you Bryan?” asked Drood bitterly. Bryan shrugged his shoulders.
“Theoretically, the chrono-displacement field should re-open the portal in the exact same spot it occurred in…” Bryan tailed off as he looked in shock over Drood’s shoulder. Drood turned round very slowly. There was Lucius, still obviously groggy from the impact with the helmet, but now upright, swaying slightly and brandishing the gladius sword at them. He shouted something at them in Latin. Drood and Bryan looked at each other and then back at the Roman.
“Please tell me you speak Latin, Bryan” Hissed Drood out of the corner of his mouth. Bryan wracked his brains for a moment.
“Er… Non crapito san janitorum!” He yelled. Lucius looked at them in astonishment. Drood looked back at Bryan.
“What did you just say to him?” He asked. Bryan beamed back at Drood.
“It’s the only bit of Latin I can ever remember. It’s from Carry on Henry where Sid James explains Henry the VIIIth’s motto to Cardinal Wolsley.” Drood groaned.
“So what did you just say?” He repeated urgently.
“Non crapito san janitorum – don’t shit on your own doorstep.” Lucius was looking at them as if they were from another planet, which to be honest they might as well have been.
“We’re confronted by an irate violent Roman and you start quoting Talbot Rothwell scripts at him!” Shouted Drood. “God I wish the bloody chrono thing would fucking open right now…” just at that moment, with a loud crackling sound, the ethereal light spread around Bryan’s shape as the displacement field opened. Bryan offered his hand to Drood.
“Come on! Hurry up!” Drood ran so he was right next to Bryan. Lucius took a slight pace toward them, but the weird light and noise was obviously frightening him. Bryan waved at him and shouted “Arriverderci, Brutus!” and with a loud backward popping sound, Bryan and Drood vanished infront of the legionaries astonished eyes. Lucius stood in the deafening silence, looking toward where the men had been, but of the weird people there was not a hint of any evidence they had ever been there. He looked round himself two or three times, just to make sure they weren’t playing some joke on him. But they had gone.
“Non crapito san janitorum?” He repeated to himself. These Britons were crazy. He could hear the decurion approaching in the gloom. He would explain all to him and seek advice from his many years of service in foreign lands. Within two minutes of starting the story, Lucius was on a charge of being drunk on duty and was given three days field punishment as a consequence. And serves him right.