The soldiers’ tale - John Butler

Old soldiers are usually good for a yarn, especially after a few drinks. Longinus was no exception.

He had recently been discharged from his legion after twenty years of service and a few of us were celebrating with him. ‘You must have some tales to tell’, I said to him, ‘after twenty years.’

He thought for a moment then said, ‘Well, buy me another drink and I’ll tell you something very strange.’ This is his story.

It happened about fifteen years ago, in Palestine. We were stationed in Jerusalem, mainly to keep public order. There had been some trouble among the Jewish population and the leader of one faction was executed. Word came to us that the high priest had asked the governor to put a guard on this chap’s tomb—why, I don’t know.

Anyway, twenty of us were detailed to do guard duty. We were divided into two squads of ten and each squad was on duty alternate nights. The execution had taken place on a Friday, so the first squad guarded the tomb r=that night. I was in the second squad, on duty on Saturday night.

We set off to the tomb just before sunset—the squad plus a captain of the guard. We camped in a garden near the tomb and lit a camp fire. It can be chilly at night in Palestine in early spring.

The squad was divided into pairs, each to do a two-hour shift to cover the approximately ten hours of darkness. We drew lots to see who got which shift. A chap called Tycho and myself drew the fourth shift which would finish roughly about two hours before dawn.

I remember when we took over at the tomb everything was very quiet. Not a soul about and bright moonlight. It had been a full moon a few nights before. The tomb was just a cave with a huge rock across the entrance to seal it off.

Well, when you are a sentry you don’t just stand for two hours in the one spot. Tycho and I walked up and down, chatting to each other to keep awake. Thirty paces one way, then thirty the other.

It must have been very near the end of the shift when it happened. We had walked away from the tomb on our beat and suddenly it was as if an earthquake had struck. Maybe it was the stone rolling back, for that was what had happened. The rock had moved, and a glowing figure was sitting on it. My hair stood on end.

We hurried over and peered into the cave, but it was too dark in there to see anything. Tycho left me and ran back to the campfire for a torch. When he came back, we could see that the cave was empty, except for some of the linen cloths bodies are wrapped in.

We woke the captain, who was not happy. He came back to the tomb with us and saw it was as we had said. ‘You two must have fallen asleep’, he said angrily. Tycho and I swore by all the gods that we hadn’t .

The captain being a practical man said, ‘Well, no use guarding an empty tomb. Wake the others and we’ll go back to barracks.’

We knew we were in trouble later that morning when we were summoned to see the high priest. He was in a bad mood and, I think, rather rattled. He questioned us for about an hour, and then he did a very strange thing. He took out a bag of money and gave each of us a substantial sum. ‘Take this’, he said. ‘And if anyone asks you what happened, say you fell asleep and that the followers of that criminal had come and stolen his body.’

Well, there was no way we could agree to that—sleeping on sentry duty was a very serious offence in the legion: we might even be executed. But the high priest insisted, and reassured us, ‘If you do as I ask, there will be no trouble. I will speak to the governor personally.’

That put a different complexion on the matter. It was easy money—money for jam, as they say.

But, between ourselves mates, I swear by Jupiter, Mars and Mithra that Tycho and I did not sleep on duty. We know what we saw.