Ancient Evenings

by Norman Mailer

  “Around us you could hear the echo of the five thousand men of Amon digging away, although with no great effort. In another hour we might be moving again. So they carried on with the ease of men unharnessing their horses, feeding their beasts and their own mouths, and in all this unyoking of the provision trains, there was a feeling of safety at the size of our numbers. Only I felt oppressed in my breath. Even though I did not want to fight beside Utit-Khent, still I worked on the chariot I might yet have to ride with him, grinding the bronze rim of the wheels with a rare hard stone I carried in my leather bag until the edge was sharp as a knife. That would not last for long, but, oh, what cruelty a wheel, freshly honed, could commit on the body of a fallen man. All the while, I continued to feel heavy in my lungs. When we came to this camping ground, I had seen no sign of another army, no litter whatsoever, and the red pine needles of the forest floor were smooth. Yet they did not look smooth so much as swept back into order. I had the feeling an army had been here before us, even this morning, and wondered how easily pine needles could conceal their traces. Besides, I could smell the God of the pine trees and He was almost as strange as the God who came with the myrrh from Punt.

  “Men kept coming to the Pharaoh’s Pavilion with little pieces of equipment. Here was a wagon-spoke unfamiliar to us, or a broken leather cinch with a strange-smelling oil. More and more did a sentiment become powerful to me that the forest was stale. Then I thought if I were Metella, yes, I would stay on this north side of Kadesh well hidden by the forest, even as Usermare-Setpenere moved forward from the south Only when He came up to the walls, would I cross the river to the east and hide on the other side to keep the city between us. Then, if He came even farther north to this place, so would I move altogether to the south and still be hidden by the walls of Kadesh. That way I could cross the river in the place where there were many fords and strike into the middle of the Division of Ra, there in that open field south of the city.

  “Even as I was considering such maneuvers, an outcry began in our camp. Two Asiatics had just been brought in by scouts, their faces covered with blood. Soldiers in the middle of cooking a meal stared as the captors led these prisoners to the Pavilion of the Pharaoh. Then came many screams and the sound of the flail. By the time I entered the King’s tent, the backs of the prisoners were as bloody as their features, and I was glad I could not see their expression.

  “Each bite of the flail whipped loose a piece of skin large as your palm. Usermare-Setpenere now pulled off a strip from the prisoner’s shoulder like a ribbon of papyrus, and threw it to the ground. Then He said: ‘Speak the truth.’ That Hittite could not have known a word of our language, but he knew the voice, he knew the eyes that looked at him. The light from those eyes was as full of flame as the sun. So to Usermare-Setpenere, by way of Utit-Khent, he said, ‘O Son of Ra, spare my back.’

  “ ‘Where is your miserable King of the Hittites?’

  “ ‘Behold,’ cried the Asiatic in his language, and ‘behold’ said our Overseer-of-Both-Languages in our language, ‘Metella the King of Kadesh has gathered many nations in great numbers. His soldiers cover the mountains and valleys.’

  “He continued to speak even as Amen-khep-shu-ef was twisting this man’s arm behind his neck. I thought his shoulder would dislocate, for even the bleeding stopped, so white did his back become from the pressure. Yet the scout said it all, every word, waiting each few words for Utit-Khent to express what he had said, all the while swallowing his groans. Now, Usermare-Setpenere raised His sword. ‘Where is Metella now?’

  “He could hold out no longer: ‘O my Lord, Metella is waiting on the other bank of the river.’

  “I thought the sword would fall. It hovered. Instead, our King let go of the Hittite, and turned to us. ‘See what you have told Me,’ He cried out, ‘see how you have spoken of the King of Kadesh as a coward who flees.’ Now I thought He would take the sword to His son. The Prince struck His head to the ground seven times, and must have had many thoughts, for when He looked up, He said, ‘My Lord, let Me ride back to tell the Division of Ptah. We will need them.’ When our King gave a slow nod, as if forced to agree despite His wrath, the Prince was out of the tent, and at once, I suppose, on His way, although none of us were able to know what another did, for in the next moment, chaos fell upon us. I heard a far-off din, a nearer uproar, and then the voice of a hundred horses, a most fearful clamor, a pandemonium, the shock and crash of chariots. We did not know that the shattered legions of the Division of Ra, horses without chariots and charioteers without horses, were now running our way, infantrymen chasing wagon trains pulled at a gallop by horses without drivers, and all of this disorder came down on us. Only later would I learn that the Division of Ra had been cut in half even as I had foreseen it, there in the road where they were long indeed like a worm. Now the rear of Ra was running back to the Division of Ptah, and the front half was on us in their rout, some already falling under the first chariots of the first Hittites, while the survivors were staggering up to the shields and earthworks of the outer square of Amon. The armies of Metella, like a serpent of the Very Green, had washed right up to the shore on which we stood. In this clamor, we saw the sky become as dark as the metal in an infantryman’s dagger.”

  NINE

  “I Could tell you,” said Menenhetet to our Pharaoh, and to my mother and father, “of how we spoke of this battle later, when each man could tell it to his own advantage. Then, it was only by comparing the lies that you could begin to look for the truth. But that was later. At this moment, there was nothing but noise, and much confusion. Yet I do not find it hard to remember how I felt through all of that long afternoon to follow when so many of us were nearer to the dead than the living, because I never felt so alive. I can still see the spear that passes to the left of my shoulder, and the sword that misses my head. Once more—it is as near to me as falling from my bed in a dream—I am thrown out from the Pharaoh’s Chariot by the shock of a lance against my shield. It was the greatest battle of all wars, and in my four lives I never heard of anything like it. Of course, my mind did not speak to me on that day as on others, and it is true that the most unusual moments and the most unimportant passed equally like separate strangers, but I remember that in the instant when the clamor first beat about our camp, Usermare-Setpenere turned to me, and said, ‘Take your shield and ride in My Chariot,’ and I who had dreamed of this moment down the Nile, in the dust of Gaza, and through the mysteries of Tyre, could only nod my head and think that the work I had spent in sharpening the wheels of the chariot of Utit-Khent was work worse than lost, for Utit-Khent would probably cut his own leg off falling out of the chariot, and such is the shock of battle where events become as shattered as broken rocks whose pieces fly in all directions, so I was seeing fragments of what was yet to happen, and Utit-Khent certainly did fall out of his chariot, and his leg was mangled by the wheel I sharpened even as his horses in panic ran over him.

  “As I say, all I could feel at the instant was that I must now find my leather bag and my stone and begin to sharpen the wheels of His Chariot. But even to have such a thought was stupid. A squad of soldiers—the Royal Guard of the Chariot-of-the Mighty-Bull—were forever polishing the gold and silver filigree, and working many royal stones on the treads—you could lose your finger running it along His wheels. So I climbed up instead on the cage of the lion to get a better view of all that was happening about us. Immediately, Hera-Ra started roaring beneath like a drunken beggar, hooking at his cage so furiously I almost fell off. Standing on those slats, the beast thumped my feet with his tail and shoulders and head, while I looked in all four directions, my organs in an uproar to match a confusion of sights multitudinous as the foam of the Very Green. I could certainly see the King’s square surrounded on all four sides, for the larger square built in such haste by the soldiers of Amon was now lost. Beyond our square was a chaos and a carnage. The Division of Amon were fleeing their meals, their games, their tents, their wagon trains and their
animals. While our inside square stood fast for the Pharaoh, outside I could see no more than a few of ours to face hordes of Hittites overrunning us so quickly they were caught already in their own rush. These Asiatics were not riding in one careful rank behind another of charioteers in perfect order the way we Egyptians like to advance, no, just a mob of hundreds of chariots, three men in each, wearing odd yellow hats, nor did they fight with bow and sword but tried to run everything down with their axes. In this din, our chariots, at least those still fighting, kept weaving in and out, our charioteers, some even at this hour with the reins around their waist, were pulling bows, quick as sparrows fighting boars. The enemy was so big and clumsy that I even saw two Hittite chariots crash into each other, three men in one catapulted out even as the other three were hurled to the ground. Yet over every hill, through these thin woods, came more ranks of Hittite chariots, some at a run, some at a walk, and then I saw the nearest thirty or forty, maybe a squadron, riding at a gallop toward the King’s square itself. They charged our breastworks, up and over, and nearly all spilled. Those who did not, landed among the strongest of the Pharaoh’s Sherdens who seized these Asiatic horses by the bridle, and held their footing long enough to turn the horses’ necks and halt the chariot, at which moment, other Sherdens ripped the horses’ bellies with their daggers. Then they pulled off the Hittites. Of the thirty who charged into our square, not one was left, and I, like a boy quick with excitement on the cage of Hera-Ra, had only an instant to see that the Pharaoh, His head down, His eyes closed, was still praying. Out of His mouth I heard these words: ‘In the Year Five of My Reign, third month of the third season, on this Day Nine of Epiphi, under the majesty of Horus, I, Ramses Meri-Amon, the Mighty Bull, Beloved of Maat, King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Son of Ra Who am given life forever’—so I heard Him call on all His names, and even as a shaduf lifts its pail of water up the hill, so was my Pharaoh pumping up His blood as though the very water of the Land of the Dead must be lifted into His heart until He feared no death, and the dead as well as the living would listen: ‘I, Who am mighty in valor, strong as a bull, Whose might is in My Limbs like fire’—so He kept speaking while on the battleground of woods and fields outside our square I saw a horse go over backward with an arrow in its neck, down on its own chariot with its own three Hittites, and one of our charioteers with a short spear in his chest fell forward onto the shaft between his two horses. On their backs, everywhere, were dead men staring at the sky. The nearest was farther away than I could throw a stone, yet, brilliant as a bird’s eye was his eye. I could see it. Near him lay another dead man clutching his genitals. Then I saw a man whose arm was caught in the hub of a chariot wheel, and a Hittite came along and hacked at his head with an axe. All the while, most of our army was running into the woods. I could not believe in what panic were the men of Amon.

  “Now my Pharaoh had finished praying and He unhooked the door to the cage of Hera-Ra who came out. Then, to my surprise, Usermare-Setpenere leaped into His Chariot on the driver’s side. I, thereby, to the other, and He rode in a circle through our square, nearly striking some of our own men as He called, ‘We are going to attack. We are going to attack.’

  “Six chariots, seven, now eight, followed in our circle. Others saluted but did not move until the next time around. Now others joined, but not enough.

  “ ‘Follow Me,’ said Usermare-Setpenere, and with a force of twenty chariots, He rode at full speed to the southern side of our square, choosing the lowest place in the earth wall, and we drove over it and down the other side, banging against one another badly; but then we were on the field, Hittite chariots before us in every direction, and, when I dared to look behind, half of our force was still with us. The other half had not dared to make it over the wall. We were surrounded already, if you could speak in such a way when our Pharaoh, having pumped the courage of the dead into every one of His limbs, not to speak of the force of Strength-of-Thebes and Maat-is-Satisfied, fastest horses of any land, and Hera-Ra bounding at our side, his roars louder than an avalanche of rock down a cliff, were, all of us, galloping through every bewilderment of battle so fast that none, not even our own men, could keep up with us, although some tried. The Hittites parted before our passage, as well as any poor Egyptians from Amon or Ra whom we passed, and for the length of a field, through a wood, and down another field, not one arrow was shot at us, not one did we shoot, and no Hittite came near, not man nor chariot—perhaps they were all afraid of the brilliance of the chariot of Usermare-Setpenere and the face of Hera-Ra, bounding beside us.

  “Behind, like a tail that becomes so stretched the end must pull off, were our charioteers. I knew what it cost to keep up with the Pharaoh over rough ground, and only a few stayed with us now. When I dared to look, for I felt as if my good life depended on keeping eyes to the front, I could see how some of our men were surrounded by Hittites, and some had turned back, or were fighting their way back, and still my Ramses the Second galloped south, no one more happy, nobody so brave, nobody so handsome—He looked as if the sun shone out of His eyes. ‘We’ll break through,’ He shouted, ‘and find the troops of Ptah. We’ll kill these fools when we come back,’ and with that, we met a hundred Hittite chariots waiting in the next field.

  “Now I saw more battle than a man could fight. Never will I be certain how many of our chariots were still with us, if any. For when our Ramses drove with His golden vehicle full-force into the center of these heavy Hittite carts with their three men, there was nothing for the next few minutes I saw whole. So I saw the spear that came at my shield and the axe that just missed my head. I saw Hera-Ra leap across three men of one chariot onto the horses of another. I saw him hanging upside-down with his muzzle on a horse’s neck. Hidden from the arrows of the Hittite charioteers, he clung to the horse, his jaw on the blood of the stallion’s throat, the claws of his hind legs opening the belly, until the horse stood up in such extremity of pain that his mate stood up too, both screaming, and they fell backward on their drivers, even as Hera-Ra leaped from the horse to a man and bit off an arm, or most of an arm, I could not believe what I saw, all from the side of my eye, between the movements of my shield, a hundred arrows seeming to come at once, all at the Pharaoh, as if no one could think of the horses nor of me in view of His golden presence. Those arrows were wild, but not the ones I blocked. They came at us hard as birds flying full tilt into a wall, and their points came through the leather of my shield, evil as the nose of your enemy.

  “All the while, Ramses the Second would draw His bow and loose an arrow at full gallop, swerve by one Hittite chariot, then another, and was so adept we could stop, wheel, then charge away to stop short again as chariots converged on ours. ‘Your sword,’ He shouted, and there, not moving, two of us against three on either side, we fought back to back with our swords against their six axes, only it was not so unequal as that, for Hera-Ra charged one chariot, then another, and with such bloody fury that others did not come near, and we were free again, we had broken through, we were on our way to the south once more, we could reach the Division of Ptah, so we thought, so we shouted to each other, only to find another hundred Hittites facing us in still another phalanx.

  “Sometimes a few of our own chariots caught up so we were not always alone, but five times we fought like this, five times we drove into a mass of men and horses so thick the only forest you saw was swords, armor, axes, horses, limbs, and chariots turning over. Vehicles raced by empty of riders, and ran into one another. The trees quivered. Ramses’ great bow, which nobody but He could draw, had a force to drive its arrow through a man so hard it could knock him from the chariot to the ground, yet these sights I saw in fragments like the eye of a face on the shard of a pot. So, for instance, did I see a Hittite hold up a man who was expiring in the flood of a wound, while two others galloped away in a chariot without reins. The third Hittite had fallen off already. Many a soldier was trampled by horses or run over by wheels—I saw so many of those Hittite wheels with their ei
ght spokes that I dreamed of them for years, foul dreams, the little wheels puckered as a strange anus, and there were sights full of folly: I even saw a Hittite attacking his own horse in harness; such was the fever that the fellow killed the beast with his axe. Maybe it had tried to run him down. I did not know, I never saw more, I was ducking a blow, sticking a lance, or reeling from the impact of the Pharaoh’s body against me when He slammed our horses through a sharp turn, once I even fell off, landed on my feet and jumped up again. My lungs knew the fire of the Gods. I saw Hera-Ra leap at three men who stood motionless in their chariot, transfixed by the loss of their horses. They were still looking at their useless reins as he clawed down on them.

  “Loose horses were everywhere. I saw one on broken front legs, trying to rear, and a charioteer lay on the ground, holding the tail of this horse until the animal flopped around to bite him. Another man was all alone in his wagon, his horses walking in stupor with loose reins. Then the man fainted, and I saw him slide to the ground. To the other flank was a riderless horse trying to crawl into a fallen chariot. It was a madness. One pair of horses, stripped of all three men, tried to dash over a collision of other chariots, but stumbled, and the empty chariot catapulted overhead while the horses stampeded into the ground. I never heard such a scream come from animals before. The worst was a howl from a steed Usermare-Setpenere struck in the chest with an arrow when it tried to leap between our stallion and mare. Everywhere, beasts in panic were defecating as they ran. On it went. We would think we had broken through the Hittites only to see another phalanx to the south, and we would attack again, even break through, but on the sixth attempt, we saw a thousand Hittites coming toward us in orderly formation.