Sands of Egypt

by S. J. A. Turney

  Fronto watched as the small, light liburnian skipped across the whitecaps towards them. It was one of theirs, a fact confirmed by the existence of a red vexillum flying from the mast with an indistinct gold emblem that could only be Caesar’s bull. Despite its allied status, Fronto felt a shiver run through him. Ships racing like that carried important news, and in the circumstances, any news was unlikely to be favourable. He turned and glanced back across the ships behind them.

  The Roman fleet had doubled in number now since they had rendezvoused with the Thirty Seventh Legion, and better still, each ship now had a complement of veteran soldiers on board. Caesar had begun to divide the fleet up, with the ships of Rhodian origin now playing vanguard, after the almost suicidal valour one of their number had recently displayed. The Pontic ships, being built hardy and large, were positioned further out to sea, running along on the fleet’s flank, while the various vessels that had long been part of the Roman military and not recently called up during the civil war, running as the centre and rear.

  Fronto had elected to remain on the Rhodian ship after the rendezvous, which had surprised some, though apparently not those who knew him well. Caesar had warned him to be steady and careful, and not to act with his characteristic rashness. Galronus had told Fronto he was coming too, as the legate clearly could not be trusted to stay out of trouble. And Salvius Cursor had also joined them. He’d given no reason, but the way his fingers twitched and played with the pommel of his sword made his purpose clear regardless.

  A strong fleet, and now one with real teeth.

  Why, then, was Fronto so jumpy at the sight of the liburnian?

  ‘Ho,’ shouted the Rhodian captain from the rail as the small light ship came alongside, slowing like the Chimaera, though not stopping. ‘What tidings?’

  The captain of the liburnian leaned across the rail, bellowing at pace to give his news before they were past, the smaller vessel clearly bound for Caesar’s flagship.

  ‘Enemy have Pharos. Fleet awaiting you,’ was all he managed to impart before the liburnian was past and gone, racing for Caesar.

  Fronto nodded and turned to the trierarch. ‘You know the plan?’

  ‘Take the right flank, kill the sons of sand-munching bitches.’

  Fronto grinned. ‘Succinctly put.’

  It was little more than a matter of heartbeats before the fleet started to reshape itself, the news leaping from ship to ship before even reaching Caesar, and every vessel knowing the plan well, anticipating orders.

  Caesar was determined not to be surprised again, not to be caught with his tunic up and forced to run or hide. With now adequate numbers to confidently commit to an attack, there was no longer a need to tarry, and the knowledge that Arsinoë’s fleet was still at sea somewhere between them and the home port of Alexandria meant they needed to be prepared.

  The plan was simple. The nine Rhodian galleys, all of whom it seemed carried a similar reputation to that of the Chimaera, would take the right flank, fighting close to the coast as befitted island folk, used to action around headlands and coves. One of their captains, a man called Euphranor, had been raised to admiral of the Rhodian contingent. That the Chimaera’s captain approved of the choice suggested that Euphranor may well be another dangerous lunatic, in Fronto’s opinion. The eight ships of Pontus, on the other hand, would maintain their seaward position on the left flank under their own admiral, while Caesar’s fleet of seventeen Romans would drop back as a reserve force, forming the rear of a U shape. A Roman beast with Greek fangs.

  Fronto stood at the rail, grey-green as usual while at sea, but long past the point of having anything left to throw up, and consequently as comfortable as he was capable of being on a ship. The fleet swiftly reformed itself according to Caesar’s battle plan, orders from the flagship coming across quickly, supporting the manoeuvres already being undertaken.

  The coast swept past on their left, an endless line of parched brown and yellow with intermittent signs of habitation. The sea continued a stunning bright blue-green. Here and there the fleet moved a little further out to sea or huddled together to hug the coastline, depending upon instructions from the native sailors aboard, for the coast was a warren of submerged sandbanks and narrow channels. At least the easterly wind had abated somewhat. The fleet had been making better headway against it than expected, anyway, but for the past hour or more the breeze had dropped to little more than a wisp, and the Roman fleet ploughed on at speed.

  Anticipation was getting to Fronto as he finally saw the bulk of Alexandria looming ahead. Galronus appeared beside him and leaned on the rail.

  ‘No sign of them?’

  Fronto shook his head. ‘Not yet. From what I gather they seem to have been lurking in the mercantile harbour on this side of the Heptastadion while their army try to take the Pharos Island. At least that’s the rumour among the crew, gleaned from shouts from other ships. Whether they’ve taken the whole island or not we’ll find out soon enough, but their fleet won’t risk being caught and trapped in port. They’ll be out to sea somewhere outside the Great Harbour, preventing us from returning. But they’re going to get a bloody shock if they think we’re the same fleet they met to the west.’

  Galronus nodded. ‘Bigger and better armed.’

  ‘And confident.’

  The two men fell silent at the rail and watched the shape of Pharos Island coming ever closer, the sprawl of urban Alexandria out to the right and the reaching arms of the commercial harbour before that. After a time, Salvius Cursor also joined them at the rail, his manner fidgety.

  The fleet had begun to round the island when they first caught sight of the enemy, on both land and sea. Across Pharos lay small settlements, suburbs of the main city, and the men of the enemy force were visible on towers and rooftops, watching Caesar’s fleet approach. The enemy fleet lay waiting at the far end of the island, guarding the entrance to the Great Harbour.

  Fronto peered myopically into the bright distance.

  ‘I reckon we outnumber them now.’

  Salvius Cursor nodded. ‘I agree, though not by a great margin. We have thirty four warships. I reckon they have a few short of thirty, but plenty of small craft to make up the numbers.’

  Galronus pointed at them. ‘They’ve mirrored our formation.’

  Fronto squinted. It was true. The bulk of their fleet, all quadriremes by the look of it, were drawn up in two groups to left and right, with perhaps half a dozen larger quinqueremes in a rear reserve line between them.

  ‘Looks like they plan to butt heads.’

  A sailor standing nearby and coiling a rope paused in his work and pointed to the expanse of water between them. ‘Formation caused by sea,’ he said in a thick Greek accent. ‘See the channels and the sandbank?’

  Fronto turned his attention from the fleet to the sea that lay before them. Now that the man had drawn his attention to it, he could clearly see the problem. On the north side of the island, the coastal waters had once more formed into channels and banks. Here a wide shallow area sat before them, its depth inadequate for most ships, with a deeper channel to each side, which would afford adequate beam for the fleet. It would mean sending ships in small groups through the channels rather than sweeping forwards in a wide front, which would effectively negate any advantage Caesar could claim from numbers or manpower. The wily bastards.

  ‘Can we not just go round them?’ Galronus mused.

  Salvius Cursor shook his head and pointed off to the right, towards the great Pharos lighthouse and the small fort that lay beside it. ‘No time. This is a race now. See?’

  And they could. The forces of the Aegyptian army were at the walls of the Pharos fort, swarming at it in an attempt to take it from the small Roman garrison. All three of them watched that fight, tense and horribly aware of what was at stake. They now had to beat the enemy navy with alacrity, for they needed to pass into the Great Harbour and send men to the fort’s aid as soon as possible. If they delayed too long and the fort fell
to the enemy, many ships could be sunk trying to gain entrance to the harbour once more. Arsinoë’s new general knew what he was doing, clearly.

  At a call from the flagship that echoed across every deck in relay, the fleet maintained its formation but slowed to a halt at the nearer edge of the shallows, facing the enemy. There they sat for some time, two fangs of heavy warships facing off along the deeper channels with the reserves facing across the submerged sandbank.

  ‘They’ve got to move,’ Salvius Cursor spat. ‘Or we have.’

  Fronto cursed. ‘They have no intention of moving. The longer they delay the more time their army has to overwhelm the fort and deny us the harbour. In doing nothing they win by default.’

  ‘Then why don’t our ships move?’ Galronus grumbled.

  ‘Because no one, even these mad bastards, want to commit to sailing in more or less single file straight at the enemy. And Caesar doesn’t know what to do about it. If Brutus was here and in charge, I suspect he’d have a plan already, but there’s no clear solution other than throwing ourselves at the enemy and hoping and praying.’

  Their tense concern was interrupted by a strangely positive roar from the Chimaera’s crew, and the three Romans’ heads snapped around. The crew were all facing out to sea and, looking past them, Fronto could see the Rhodian command ship, the Ajax, had moved slightly forward. A figure stood high in the prow with his arms thrown wide. He was shouting and at such distance, Fronto had to concentrate to make it out.

  ‘…not be afraid of being the first into battle! Let the Pontics and the Romans quake at danger. We are men of Rhodos, sons of the sea. It shames us that soft Aegyptian sailors sit proud and watch us panic. No more. Not for me.’

  Fronto grinned. Admiral Euphranor was clearly spoiling for a fight. Well, nothing was as sure as he’d get one.

  ‘For Rhodian honour let us feed these Aegyptians their own gizzards while the rest of the fleet comes up behind. Four vessels to lead. Who’s with me?’

  There were distant roars from other vessels, and Fronto was unsurprised at the bloodthirsty bellowing that resounded across the Chimaera. Even as Euphranor gave the command and his ship began to surge forwards, so too did the Chimaera, ploughing into the deep channel on the shoreward flank, coming along beside the Rhodian command ship, two more of the fast and dangerous vessels falling in close to their rear.

  Fronto turned his attention back to the enemy fleet and the stretch of sea in between as the voices of four Rhodian ships slid cacophonically from miscellaneous excited cries into a lively song, in a thick eastern Greek dialect that largely escaped Fronto’s ability to translate. It seemed to be about blood, honour, blood, ships, steel and blood, blood and more blood. It sounded worryingly happy and carefree for a song with such a subject, but all four crews chorused their way through it as the vessels slid at breakneck pace towards the waiting enemy.

  The distance to the lead Aegyptian vessels Fronto estimated at fifteen hundred paces now, as the Rhodian ships pelted forwards at an astonishing pace. At a signal from the command ship, the artillery in the bows were loaded and primed, ready for action. A second call had the archers take up positions. Fronto turned. Like all vessels in the fleet, the Chimaera was now host to a century of legionaries from the Thirty Seventh. He almost burst out laughing at the faces he saw among his countrymen, who clearly had drawn the short stick to be placed on board this vessel full of lunatics. The centurion did a commendable job of looking confident and unflappable, telling his men to be steady and prepared, though the way his fingers continually twitched showed a nervousness he had tried hard to hide.

  A thousand paces. The corvus boarding ramps were unfastened to be ready, a move that spoke to Fronto of homicidal optimism, given the number of ships awaiting them. Eleven warships, he could count, all of whom might well be able to engage the Chimaera and its companion, the Ajax, before any support arrived.

  He turned. The rest of the fleet was moving now. Caesar must have given his signal and the rest of the Rhodians were racing in the wake of the four lead vessels. The Pontic ships had begun to move on the other flank, and Caesar’s Roman reserve were splitting and committing to one channel or the other. They would be of little use to the advance force, mind. Unless the Rhodians somehow managed to rout the group of eleven vessels that guarded the far end of that channel, there would be insufficient room to open up and manoeuvre, and it would all be down to the success of these lead Rhodians. Fronto just prayed they were as prepared as they had been last time.

  Eight hundred paces. Three enemy vessels were concentrating on each of them now, the Chimaera and the command ship to their left. The other five had fanned out and were in position to support any of their fellows and prevent a breakout through the fleet. Commendable, of course, but Fronto knew what the Aegyptians were facing. If he’d been the enemy he’d have committed every ship he had to stopping those two lead vessels before the two directly behind them could come in.

  Six hundred paces. Fronto gave up trying to pay attention to what Admiral Euphranor and his command ship did. Now it all came down to the Chimaera. Three vessels converging on them, two more close by, off to the right on the shore side. What had the insane captain planned this time?

  Salvius Cursor drew his blade but Fronto shook his head. ‘If you need that we’re finished. Until we’ve broken out and evened the numbers, it’s all down to the ships.’

  A series of signals issued from the rear of the vessel and Fronto smiled. He had absolutely no idea what the man was doing, but it was peculiar and unexpected, and the enemy would be equally dumbfounded and wrong-footed by it.

  Three warships were racing directly at the Chimaera, some thirty paces apart to allow adequate room for the oars without meeting and interfering. Fronto staggered, along with his friends, as the ship suddenly slewed to the left, heading almost on a collision course with the command ship. He clutched sickeningly at the rail as the others threw worried looks around. Fronto just grinned. The Rhodian captain was up to something, for sure.

  When it looked certain there would be a collision with the Ajax, who had not flinched, suddenly and without shouted orders the Chimaera lurched back to the right, cutting through the water neatly in a beautifully executed high-speed turn. Fronto almost laughed out loud then, as he realised what they had done.

  The enemy had seen them turn and had consequently moved to counter in perfect formation. All three enemy warships had turned to their right, still making straight for the Chimaera. Now, though, with only four hundred paces to clear, the Rhodian ship had changed direction sharply.

  The enemy reacted with varying degrees of readiness, caught completely by surprise. The flanking ships turned slower than the central one. The outside flank, towards the shore, suddenly realising she was now in danger of her own collision, turned as sharply as she could manage. Even Fronto could see how poor that decision had been. They were going too fast for that. In order not to be rammed by one of the other ships sailing forwards on the periphery, they now had no choice but to try and turn back again, moving up to maximum speed. They avoided taking another Aegyptian ram in the side by mere paces, but the panicked manoeuvre had doomed them. Though the oars moved to desperate backwatering, they were out of space. The ship crunched up onto the shore of Pharos Island at a horrible angle as it tried to turn once more. Men fell and the ship toppled to its side, half-beached.

  Laughing like a lunatic and aware that his friends were staring at him, Fronto turned back to the other ships. The remaining two who had singled them out were coming at them again. What would happen next Fronto could anticipate, though, for he’d seen it done once already by this crew. Sure enough, with little more than a hundred paces to spare, the Chimaera performed the now familiar, to Fronto at least, course correction a little to starboard.

  The enemy ships were close together, distant enough only to stop their oars meeting. Suddenly the Chimaera was aiming itself into that gap, its own oars withdrawn and lifted.

  To the
ir credit the two Aegyptian captains tried their best, and reacted as swiftly as they could once they realised what was happening. The speed of oar strokes changed so that both ships began to pull apart, veering away to either side as sharply as possible, after which the oars began to pull in.

  They were too late. The Chimaera ploughed in between them, smashing several Aegyptian oars that had been too late in withdrawing, as cries of pain and shock rang out from both vessels. As the Rhodian swept along between the two panicking Aegyptians, who reeled from the damage, the archers rose to the rails, nocking and releasing arrows in a furious cloud, their targets close and easy. By the time the Chimaera pulled away behind the two ships into the clear, the damage to the enemy had been brutal: oars broken, rowers crippled and dozens of men stuck with arrows.

  More ships were now moving from the reserve to join the fray, and those other heavy warships that had been on the periphery were pulling forwards to engage. At a signal the twin artillery pieces in the prow launched at one of the other vessels, the bolt flying wide, but the rock striking somewhere mid-upper deck.

  They were momentarily free of enemy vessels, and at a series of bellowed orders the sail was let out fully, the oars run out once more and the ship began to turn and sweep forwards, ready to engage another enemy. Fronto caught the boggle-eyed looks on Galronus and Salvius and laughed as he turned to take in the rest of the fight. ‘They’re so suicidally reckless I’m starting to think they may be related to you,’ he grinned at the tribune.

  Leaving them to gape in shock, Fronto looked back over their own fleet.

  They were in a better position than they had any right to hope for. Admiral Euphranor’s command ship had pulled off a similar coup with their own three enemies, and two of those were now reeling at the edge of the fight, getting in the way of the other ships trying to commit. Given the moment of freedom, Euphranor’s ship had directly engaged another and was trying to board her.

  Meanwhile the other two Rhodian ships who had come up astern were now free of the narrow channel and were moving out to commit to battle, taking on the other warships of the Aegyptian flank. Fronto couldn’t make out what was happening out to sea, but it seemed that the Pontic ships were also either engaged or closing to do so.