Writing the Return – The Warrior’s Homecoming

I’m nearing the end of the first draft of Eagles and Dragons, Book III – Warriors of Epona.

This has been a very different book to write. The characters are farther along their path, and there are many new ones that have come onto the scene.

I’ve also left the marble of Rome, and the sands of North Africa behind for the fog-choked hills of Caledonia.

War has come.

My protagonist has fought a long hard campaign with his men, the most bloody and savage of his career. He’s been on campaign incessantly for about a year without the comforts of civilization or of Mediterranean warmth.

He faces an enemy that will not come out into the open most of the time, and supposed allies that he really cannot trust.

For him, life has been a constant cycle of fighting for survival. He has led his warriors, and killed for Rome, all for the purposes of advancing the Empire’s plans for conquest.

Modern Conflict

Indeed, one of the themes running through all books is that of the powerful few sending many to die on the battlefields of the Empire. The soldiers are at the whim of those roaming and ruling the corridors of power.

Sound familiar? My, how history does repeat itself.

Always at the back of my protagonist’s mind is the family that he misses. But if he thinks on them too much, if he loses his focus at any time, his enemies will tear him apart.

The warrior’s life has never been an easy one, especially when you have something to lose.

I find myself in an interesting position now, as I write the last few chapters of Warriors of Epona.

Homecoming Parade in the UK

It’s time, in a sense, for my protagonist to ‘come home’.

But how is that even possible after the life he has led? Can he really ‘come home’?

How have warriors, men and women, dealt with the aftermath of war?

In his book The Warrior Ethos, Steven Pressfield asks a pertinent question:

“All of us know brothers and sisters who have fought with incredible courage on the battlefield, only to fall apart when they came home. Why? Is it easier to be a soldier than to be a civilian?”

In one way, perhaps life at war is more straightforward. Every day, every moment perhaps, your thoughts, your purpose, are focussed on the objective – take that position, hold that region, protect your brothers and sisters in arms, stay alive. In some cases, it’s kill or be killed.

Modern Conflict in Afghanistan

We’re back to primal instincts here.

Today, we have any number of soldier’s aid societies and government programs and guides that are intended to help veterans of wars reintegrate into society.

These groups do good work that is much-needed, but is it enough? How can non-combatants in civilian society understand the physical and emotional trauma that is experienced by warriors after the battle?

In the ancient and medieval worlds, there were no societies or organizations whose purpose was to help returning warriors reintegrate.

Spartan Warriors
Art by Peter Connolly

Granted, in warrior societies such as Sparta and Rome, the majority of warriors probably enjoyed the fighting.

Sparta, I should point out, is a unique example. All Spartan men were warriors. That was their purpose.

But in the Roman Empire, returning warriors would have had to reintegrate in a way similar to today, rather than ancient Sparta. Later Roman society valued not just fighting prowess, but also political acuity, the arts, rhetoric, skill at a trade, generally being a good citizen in society.

In some ways, the Roman Empire combined the best of both Spartan and Athenian societies.

Modern Warriors

However, going back to peace time in a civilian society after the straightforward survival life of a prolonged campaign on the battlefield would have been tough.

We read about legionaries coming back to Rome and getting into all sorts of trouble, their days and nights taken up with gambling, brawling, and whoring.

It’s no wonder that generals and emperors created coloniae of retired soldiers on the fringes of the Empire. In these places, veterans would not be able to cause trouble in Rome, but they would also be given the opportunity to have some land and make a life for themselves.

Family Reunion

In Warriors of Epona, my protagonist will soon be reunited with his family. He’ll be facing peace time.

How will he deal with this? How will his family deal with him?

War changes a person, whether it is in the past or the present day. It’s an experience unlike any other and I salute anyone who faces the conflict that comes with stepping from the world of war into the world of peace.

In the Roman Empire, they were two very different battlefields, as they are, I suspect, today.

How will my own character deal with the transition?

Only the next couple of chapters will be able to tell me.

Thank you for reading. 

Today, there are numerous organizations whose sole purpose is to help veterans, young and old, to make the transition from war zone to home front.

If you know someone returning from one of the many conflicts going on the world, here are a few resources:

US Department of Veterans’ Affairs guide to reintegration: http://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/reintegration/guide-pdf/smguide.pdf

Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America: http://iava.org/

Soldiers’ Angels: https://soldiersangels.org/

List of other Military and Veteran resources: http://www.military.com/spouse/military-life/military-resources/military-and-veteran-associations.html

Remembrance - Honouring the Dead

Monday, November 11^th, is Remembrance Day and Veterans Day.

For some, this is just another day they might get off work. They’ll carry on as usual, ignorant or uncaring of the reasons for this day or why so many people are wearing red poppies.

Thankfully, many people still do remember that Novebmer 11^th is a day for remembering those men and women who have died in the line of duty. You may not agree with the motives for some of these wars, you may support them vehemently. Whatever your opinion of the battles, this is a time to honour the courage of the soldier on the ground, the warriors past and present.

This year, I’d like to share an excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey. Below is a moving description of the funeral of Achilles, the Greek warrior who has inspired soldiers and others for thousands of years. Here, in the meadow of asphodel, the 'dwelling-place of souls', Agamemnon meets Achilles and tells the hero of his funeral in the land of Troy:

“Happy son of Peleus, Achilles like the gods,” answered the ghost of Agamemnon, “for having died at Troy far from Argos, while the best of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell around you fighting for your body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely, heedless now of your horsemanship. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor should we ever have left off if Zeus tore their hair and wept bitterly round about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out of the sea, and the sound of heavenly wailing went forth over the waters so that the Achaeans old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying, `Hold, Argives, flee not, sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.' Thus he spoke, and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lament—calling and answering one another; there was not an Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chanted. Days and nights seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many an ox did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of the gods, with rich resins and with honey, while Achaean heroes, horse and foot, clashed their armor round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp as of a great multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done their work, we gathered your white bones at daybreak and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your mother brought us a golden amphora to hold them—gift of Dionysos, and work of Hephaistos himself; in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of Patroklos, who had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that Patroklos was no more. Over their bodies we the sacred army of Argive spearmen piled up a huge and perfect tomb, on a jutting headland, by the wide Hellespont, so that it may be bright from afar for men coming from the sea, both those who are now and those who will be in the future. Your mother begged prizes from the gods, and offered them to be contended for by the noblest of the Achaeans. You must have been present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some great chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis offered in your honor; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death your kleos, Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore among all humankind.” (Homer; Odyssey. Book 24. lines 35–95)

 

Troy - Kesik Tepe, Turkey - possible Tumulus of Achilles where
Alexander the Great made sacrifices to the heroes of the Trojan War

This passage never fails to move me, for it honours one of the greatest heroes of the ancient world in such a beautiful way. Today, Achilles may seem outrageous and brutal, selfish. But to ancient eyes, he was what every warrior aspired to. For thousands of years afterward, the ghost of Achilles’ exploits followed men into battle at home, and on foreign fields.

Achilles is buried with his brother-in-arms, Patroklos, in a tumulus overlooking the sea, far away from their home in Greece.

So too are buried hundreds of thousands of soldiers who fought in the horrible wars of our modern era. They lie in orderly rows, also overlooking the sea, where they were buried by their brothers and sisters in war.

Never mind the political machinations of the past and present. Those who have lost, and fought, and suffered, and died, are no less deserving of our remembrance than the heroes of that long ago war beneath high-walled Troy.

I remember you all and thank you for your sacrifices. Wherever you may now be, I hope my thanks, and the smoke from my offerings will reach you there.

Picture Postcard #3 - In the Morning

We attack the beach at Troy in the morning and I look back, toward home.

I sit and stare west to Achaea across the sea where only yesterday our thousand ships had cut the deep.

My comrades are jovial, thirsty for blood and wine, for women and Trojan gold.

But how can we breach or scale those high walls? They are god-made.  The horse-tamers of Ilium are battle-hardened.

Even with the mighty Achilles and Ajax, Diomedes, cunning Odysseus, Menelaus and kingly Agamemnon, I fear that our charges will break upon the walls to leave a feast for carrion crows and dogs.

The last time I saw a sunset like this I sat with my wife and daughters in the olive grove outside our home. We laughed as the cicadas fell slowly to sleep and fireflies lit those green and silver leaves.

The poet said that war breeds heroes, and that is true. But it also breeds widows and orphans and the death of bloodlines.

Oh goddess, if you can hear me now…

Watch over my wife and children. May I live to see them again, to hold them, to laugh and love and watch this same sun set upon our lands.

I am a warrior. I am strong. My sword and spear are sharp and my bronze and oak shield thick enough to break a hundred Trojan charges.

If I am to fight, let it be for the glory of my gods, of my family and of the land which I long to see again.

I will bleed for you… but I would not yet cross the fiery threshold of Hades.

Gods of Olympus, let this war’s raging be swift that we may all return home soon, the beaks of our ships adorned with wreaths of victory.

May the light of that setting sun guide us home evermore.