I kept ten, and so did Pertinax. We lived and slept
in the saddle, riding east or west, and we ate our worn-out
ponies. The people of the town also made us some
trouble till I gathered them all in one quarter behind
Hunno. We broke down the Wall on either side of it to
make as it were a citadel. Our men fought better in close order.
'By the end of the second month we were deep in the
War as a man is deep in a snowdrift, or in a dream. I think
we fought in our sleep. At least I know I have gone on the
Wall and come off again, remembering nothing between,
though my throat was harsh with giving orders, and my
sword, I could see, had been used.
'The Winged Hats fought like wolves - all in a pack.
Where they had suffered most, there they charged in
most hotly. This was hard for the defenders, but it held
them from sweeping on into Britain.
'In those days Pertinax and I wrote on the plaster of the
bricked archway into Valentia the names of the towers,
and the days on which they fell one by one. We wished
for some record.
'And the fighting? The fight was always hottest to left
and right of the great statue of Roma Dea, near to
Rutilianus's house.
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