The Legion Lost – Part I

by Timothy J Jarvis

‘The Legion Lost’ arrived in the post in early 2001, in a manila envelope with a London postcode. No note accompanied it; there was nothing to indicate who had authored it, or why it had been sent to me. It is written, on feint-ruled sheets torn from a pad, in a hand which begins neat, but soon ebbs to frantic scrawl.

At first I thought it a work of fiction dissembling a true account, but, as I read, waxed less and less certain of this, and more and more uneasy. Whatever it may be, it disquiets me to this day.

The Legion Lost

Short, paunchy, jittery – turning his head with jerky movements to look about him all the while – and dressed in threadbare, rumpled, and dun-coloured garments, the man looked a city sparrow, plump from feeding on scraps, but mangy and fraught.

‘It was thirteen years ago, this very day,’ he said without preamble. ‘Thirteen years ago I became one of those unfortunates who can never gain…’

He, grimaced, broke off to take a swig from the bottle, concealed in a brown paper bag, he held. Choking, he sputtered, turned red. Over his shoulder, I could see a group of students throwing a frisbee around, and, uncomfortable, stared at the arcing flights of the red plastic disk until the fit had passed. Once it had, the man hawked and spat into a handkerchief taken from the breast pocket of his shirt. After peering into the cloth a moment, he balled it up and returned it to his pocket.

‘Who can never gain a moment’s respite,’ he continued finally. ‘That is to say, the Legion Lost.’

That evening it was very warm and, after work, I had bought a four pack of lager and gone to Gordon Square in Bloomsbury to sit and drink in the sun. Back then it was rare for me to drink on my own, well, quite rare – it’s only since that time alcohol has become my sole succour – but it’d been a bad day – my manager had called me into his office to harangue me because a contract that my team had been negotiating had gone ‘tits-up’, ‘pear-shaped’ (‘up the swanny,’ I ventured, but was met with a glare).

The air was thick with the hairs of London plane seedballs, which made my eyes scratchy, but apart from that it was pleasant to lounge there drinking, and, after a little, my boss’s rebuke faded from my ears. It was about then the sparrow approached the bench I was sitting on, sat down next to me. I avoided eye contact, but with glances askance built up, piecemeal, my picture of him.

I could tell by his manner he was building up to addressing me, stoking his courage with pulls at his bottle, but the sun blazed down, I was halfway through my fourth can, was a little stupored, and didn’t feel like moving. That drowse has cost me.

Then, after a few minutes, he uttered the enigmatic pronouncement recorded above.

‘The Legion Lost?’ I echoed, after a moment’s pause.

He pinched his nose.

‘Means nothing to you?’

‘No.’

Turning to look at me, he took a long swallow from his bottle.

‘I thought I saw it in you. Why I came over. Well, you’re lucky. Sorry for bothering you.’

He got up to leave. I wish now I’d simply let him go, but my curiosity was roused. I grabbed and tugged his sleeve.

‘Wait. The Legion Lost? Tell me.’

A cloud passed before the sun, and a shadow scoured the square. The man sat down again, sighed. A park-keeper walked past, spearing discarded crisp packets and sandwich wrappers. Holding out his hand, smiling, the man introduced himself as Ralph. I gave him my name, and we shook.

‘Here,’ Ralph said. ‘The source of that terrible epithet.’

He’d a plastic carrier bag with him, and reaching into it, he produced a book bound in dull red leather. The gilt letters on its spine glistered in the sunlight, caught my eye: Tales from the Land of Nod. He handed it to me.

‘Take a look at the title page.’

I began leafing through the volume. It was in poor condition – its pages were yellow with age and worn greasy, its binding was loose. After several blank pages, there followed a frontispiece; an etching depicting an old man, with a matted beard, dressed in a cloak. He stood, hunched, leaning on a knotty staff, amid a barren, rocky landscape. Facing this illustration was the title page; the text printed there ran as follows:

Tales from the Land of Nod

Ten startling stories heard from the lips of men and women of the Legion Lost
By Walter Waldegrave

Beneath was an epigraph:

                       Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th’Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition.

There was no other information, no publisher’s or printer’s details, no publication date. I made to turn the leaf, but Ralph reached out and snatched the book away from me before I could do so.

‘No good can come of you reading further, believe me.’

At that moment, I looked up and saw the park-keeper, a stout, florid man, with close-shorn dark hair, charging at us, tilting his spear. I pushed Ralph aside, leapt out of the way. Landing awkwardly, turning my ankle, I stumbled and fell. I hit my head on a rubbish bin. Careering on, the park-keeper ran full into the bench. His stick splintered in his hands. He yowled in pain, but recovered himself quickly, fell on Ralph and seized hold of the book. I sat, stunned, on the floor, watching them tussle.

A few people looked over, but most ignored the fight; London inures to such things.

The park-keeper flailed at Ralph, struck him in the face. Blood guttered from his nose, and he let go of the book. Staggering backwards, the park-keeper tripped on the raised kerb around a planted bed, wheeled his arms to regain his balance, and some pages, still held together by stitching down one side, came loose from the book and went fluttering, like a wounded bird, into the border. Neither Ralph nor the park-keeper noticed. Then the park-keeper, yielding to gravity, fell, landing heavily on his back in a patch of rose bushes. He lay winded, rolling his eyes.

Wiping his bloody nose on the cuff of his suit jacket, Ralph crossed over to the park-keeper and kicked him, hard, in the groin. He groaned. Then, after snatching up the book from his grasp and winking at me, Ralph turned and ran away.

‘Bloody shithole,’ the park-keeper yelled, his voice nasal.

He got ponderously to his feet, and, ignoring me, stomped off after Ralph.

I stood up, crossed to the bench, and, rubbing my sore skull, sat down to wait. When, after several minutes, neither Ralph, nor the park-keeper had returned, I went over, thrust my arm into the foliage of the bed, and retrieved the leaves that had become detached from Tales from the Land of Nod.

I left the garden, found a pub, bought a pint, and began to read. By some caprice of fate, or perhaps because the binding had been weakened at places where the book was habitually held open, the first and last pages of the section that had come loose were the first and last pages of an individual story, the final of the volume. What follows is a copy of that narrative (the original no longer exists; I burnt it, in a frenzy, thinking its baneful influence perhaps some property of the artefact itself).

***

To be continued…