I left the grave and began searching through the legion’s records and found his. I looked at his record. The boy’s name was Marcus. He was born in Rome, third son of a well off merchant. Suddenly I froze, does my eyes deceive me? It said before he enlisted he was training to be a doctor. I thought of the boy now, he was just seventeen and died just as he enlisted. I could’ve become that brave boy, dying in my arms. It appeared to me now, that boy bore my future if I was to become a soldier; he bore my death.

      “Still want to go to war?” a voiced asked behind me. I turned it was Appius. “We may not fight on a bloody battle field but fight in a hospital from the lives of the fallen. War turns brave boys into broken men and it’s up to us to heal them enough to die another day” After that sentence he left me to my thoughts. I simply broke into tears; I wanted to be as far away from this horrid place.

      Later that evening I sent a message to his family, telling them of what really happened on that day. Now I wished I never came, I wished I never left Rome to come to this hellish place.

   The soldiers weren’t the only one to be buried that day. A Gaul warrior sneaked into the fort during the battle. He came into the hospital and killed three wounded men. The warrior used his thick heavy sword and butchered the helpless wounded. They pleaded to him but they did not speak his tongue so he just killed them. Gaius saw him and like the fool I was he attacked him. At the time all he had was a hot iron poker, so he speared it into the Gaul warrior’s belly but as he dug deep into his stomach the Gaul swung his sword in pain and hacked it into Gaius’s shoulder. Within moments both Gaius and the Gaul died, flooding the floor with their crimson ruby blood.

      This happened five years ago and still it’s buried well in my mind. I left the army after a year serving in the fort. Now I live in Rome as a normal doctor, a simple doctor. I spent the last five years trying to forget that young boy but I can’t. Each evening in my dreams my mind goes back to that bloody field were he had fought and to the field of violet flowers where was buried. I can never forget that boy, those soldiers and the carnage.

      Through this I learnt one thing through all this bloodshed and barbaric killing, this one vital lone truth. The soldier has the easier job for all he had to do is take life but a doctor must save life. A field hospital, filled with hundreds of dying wounded soldiers, is truly a barbaric front.