“Turn about!” Hannibal ordered. “Signal the retreat! Signalman!”
The captain shouted the order and the signalman began frantically waving the retreat. Nearby ships saw the flags and passed the signal along. The oars of the jumble of ships nearest the Romans began pounding furiously. Quickly reaching full speed, they crossed the bows of the advancing Roman columns, easily outpacing them. Hannibal’s septireme turned seaward and the rest of the fleet followed.
As they beat a path away from the Roman fleet, the captain gazed behind them, studying the ships.
“They are fives, sir,” he announced, after a time. “But I cannot tell how many. We easily outpace them.”
“Yes, they are slow and ungainly. Fortune alone put their rams on our broadsides.”
Hannibal cursed the weather. Had it been clear, he would have destroyed them where he found them. Judging by their slow and ponderous movements, he already knew the outcome of that battle. He recalled his encounter four years ago in the strait when he had also envisioned a “thorough slaughter.” He clenched his fist at the notion that the Romans had escaped him a second time. But he was only being prudent. Their ambush of the rear of his column showed just how dangerous the fog could be, offering unforeseen advantages to even the most inferior of forces. Clearly, there would come a time soon when Fortune would remove her shielding hand from the Roman fate.
“Let us go rejoin Boodes,” Hannibal said. The enemy ships had already receded to near-invisibility. At least Hannibal no longer had to wonder where this new fleet was—it would soon be at Messana. “We must form our plans for this Roman fleet. The next time we meet them will be at a time and place of our own choosing.”
Consul Gaius Duilius watched as workmen affixed the last of the corvi to the ships of his fleet. Even to one unschooled in the arts of naval construction, he could see that it was a simple procedure. Once the devices had arrived from Syracuse, the entire fleet had been outfitted in less than two days.
After Scipio’s capture, Duilius had left tribune Caecilius in command of the army at Macella and had left at once to take control of the fleet at Messana. He was aghast at the magnitude of Scipio’s blunder.
At first he had been irritated at having to leave his army just when he was on the brink, he felt, of achieving the aims of his campaign. He was already the conqueror of Macella. His relief of the siege of Segesta, which he felt would soon follow, would cement his reputation as a military commander. By all accounts, the Carthaginian army was discouraged and had become overly cautious, afraid to confront the Roman infantry in open combat. His small army was able to operate with near impunity in Carthaginian territory.
But as he listened to Rufinus’ account of Scipio’s Lipara campaign, he became increasingly incensed with a thirst for revenge on the duplicitous Carthaginians, who, it was becoming ever clearer to him, were without honor.
“We will fight them wherever we find them,” Duilius said, looking out at the fleet moored in the harbor. He was beginning to warm to the fact that this was his instrument of war now, and no longer the ranks of flesh and iron he had left to Caecilius. “We shall avenge Scipio.”
“His friends in the Senate are putting out the word that Scipio was the victim of a deliberate Carthaginian trap,” Rufinus, who had just come from Rome, said. “As if that makes his foolishness any better,” he added.
“Is that the best his allies can come up with?”
“I’m afraid his enemies are cleverer still,” Rufinus went on. Duilius gave him an inquisitive look. “They have given him the cognomen ‘Asina’. Not just ‘Ass’, but ‘She-Ass’,” Rufinus laughed. “And the name has already stuck!”
“Oh, gods!” Duilius sighed, shaking his head. Despite his sympathy for his colleague, he could not help chuckling. He thought of many ‘should-haves’ regarding Scipio’s venture in Lipara. But, really, he wondered, what was the use of listing them?
“He should have at least waited for the corvi,” Rufinus said with his next breath, as though he had read the consul’s mind. “Then he would have had a fighting chance.”
“I understand the Carthaginians brought only twenty ships against him.”
“Apparently so. We have it from the document sent to Rome from the Carthaginian admiral Boodes, as much as it can be believed.”
Rufinus had already described Scipio’s self-laudatory proclamation and how the Carthaginian admiral had commandeered it. To Duilius, it was the most infuriating aspect of the story. In Rome, on the other hand, according to Rufinus, this had elicited the most amusement and sneering, at least among Scipio’s enemies, and had led directly to the assignation of the derisive cognomen. Duilius himself was not amused and he decided on the spot that he would like to meet this Boodes.
“You have much faith in this corvus,” Duilius said, wanting to move past the bungling of Scipio. He looked out at the forest of sticklike mainmasts of the moored ships. Perched on each bow was a corvus, a stiff-backed carrion-eater. He had to admit the resemblance.
“I was skeptical at first,” Rufinus admitted. “But I have seen it in action. Those who have used it brim with confidence in the thing.”
“Well, let’s go down and have a closer look,” Duilius said.
Dressed in breastplates, scarlet cloaks, and leather-strapped kilts over their tunics, the two military men walked down to the docks. They weaved their way through the throngs on the quayside, past donkey carts loaded with supplies and men hauling crates on their shoulders, teams of soldiers and workmen in every direction. Most of the men, noticing the consul, stopped to salute in surprise and dismay, and Duilius dismissed them with cursory waves of his hand.
As they neared the docks, the pungency of the sea and the angry squawking of seabirds overhead assailed them. However, most of all, Duilius was astonished by the height of the masts and corvi rising above him, by the sheer size and bulk of the many warships all around him. On one of them, a brazen workman had fearlessly scaled to the top of a corvus pole. Grinning and clutching the pole with his legs, he was making some last-minute one-handed adjustments to the pulley system, while his fellows swore angry oaths at him from below. Duilius smiled at the industry he witnessed. Soldiers and sailors passed them going each way, as well as merchantmen and laborers busy with the harbor’s usual bustle of commerce. At this moment, he mused, Messana was as teeming as any port in the world.
Rufinus led him to one ship in particular.
“This I used as my flagship on my journey here from Ostia,” he said with pride. “The Neptunus.”
He told the consul of his scrape with the Carthaginian fleet off the Cape of Italy. Duilius could see the deep gouges in the timbers near the ram. Rufinus pointed out the notch the crew had proudly incised on the bow of the ship, a simple hash mark, indicating that the Neptunus had claimed an enemy. Duilius nodded and began to feel a welling of excitement inside him.
“See how they left space for more!” the tribune exclaimed, with what Duilius perceived as a self-deprecating grin.
“Do not diminish your accomplishment, Tribune,” Duilius scolded him. “To go up against the Carthaginians for the first time and win! That is no small accomplishment, fog or no.”
Rufinus smiled broadly, happy to let his pride show fully. “I tell you, Consul, with the corvus, I believe I could have captured their entire fleet. What is perhaps even better is that our crews saw the enemy flee in confusion. When we picked up their survivors, they saw with their own eyes that they were just men. This will serve us well in the weeks ahead.”
“The Neptunus shall be in the vanguard of any attack I make!” Duilius proclaimed suddenly. “In fact, I shall make her my flagship. I can see that she is indeed a lucky ship!”
“She is manned by experienced oarsmen, Consul. Tarantines,” Rufinus explained. “Let’s go aboard and have a look.”
They walked down the dock and across the gangplank onto the deck of the Neptunus. A solitary Roman workman, who had been inspecting the installation of
the corvus pole, walked towards them and stiffened in salute when he saw the consul. Duilius dismissed him and the man left the ship, leaving Rufinus and Duilius alone on the mammoth vessel.
Rufinus explained the operation of the corvus. Duilius nodded, and began to understand that perhaps he had not left his instrument of war behind after all, his flesh and iron, but was instead taking his legions to fight at sea. It was an ingenious solution to a potentially fatal problem. He was proud to be a Roman.
But he wondered how the ships sailed with such a heavy, ungainly apparatus weighing on their bows.
“The prototype vessel sailed from Syracuse to Messana without incident, but this was in favorable weather. The crew reported some sluggishness, but that’s all. Archimedes the Syracusan, the thing’s inventor, proposed making the device removable, but that idea had to be rejected. It would have taken too much time. But he does not vouch for the seaworthiness of any corvus-equipped vessel.”
Duilius felt a little of his enthusiasm leak away. “This Archimedes… He is a Syracusan, you say?”
“Yes. A kinsman to the king, I believe.”
“And he is a clever man?”
“I tell you, Consul, I don’t understand a word the man says,” Rufinus admitted with a smile. “Seaworthiness was not included in his calculations, was what he told us. He said his task was merely to move Romans from one ship to another — not from port to port.” Rufinus shook his head, remembering the strange fellow.
“But the crews reported no problems?”
“None, Consul. Besides a little sluggishness, as I said.”
“Very good then,” Duilius said, slapping his hands together. “We shall be cautious when we sail. Now, let’s go below and have a look.”
Rufinus led him down a set of stairs to the rowing deck. Duilius found himself at the head of a long gangway running between two sets of three-tiered benches. A short distance before him stood a stump of wood fronted by a stool upon which laid a heavy wooden mallet. Duilius nodded in recognition.
“It is just like the mock-up in Ostia,” he said in amazement.
He had scoffed at the training when he had first seen it. He had had no idea how accurate the mock-up had been. While it was obvious that the training had not been ideal, he could see now its value. It had at least familiarized green crews with the layout and workings of a real ship.
Because the oars had been stowed and their handles overlapped one another across the walkway, they could not move through the rowing deck. Therefore, Duilius just stood looking in admiration into the interior of the great ship. It felt strange to be just two men in a space designed for three-hundred. Their voices echoed when they spoke. However, what seemed oddest of all was that the thing still smelled of fresh cut timber. He even spied hints of sawdust in some of the corners. He had to remind himself of just how new all of this was.
Then a thought suddenly occurred to him.
“Do the Carthaginians know anything of the corvus?” he asked.
“I can say with assurance that they know nothing,” Rufinus replied.
“How can you be so sure?”
“We just captured one of their spies, and uncovered his entire network.”
Duilius raised his eyebrows.
“He told us that he had just learned of the corvus,” Rufinus said. “But his information goes nowhere now.”
“Good,” Duilius said. “Can his word be trusted?”
“Oh, he was not lying to us, Consul. Rest assured, the Carthaginians know nothing.”
Good, Duilius said again, this time to himself. He was now bristling for a fight. Inside the empty ship, he could feel the battle, could hear the cries and crack of the ram, the clash of iron — and he would relish the look on Hannibal’s face when the corvus dipped its tearing beak into the guts of his fleet.
The door to the ramshackle farmhouse burst open and the Iberian’s grinning face, glistening with sweat, appeared in the opening. The woman and children gasped and the thin, sinewy man, the Mylaeian, stood to protect them.
“We are but poor farmers,” he cried, thrusting his arms out to his sides. The woman and the three children clutched one another in the corner behind him, wide-eyed.
Without a word or a moment’s hesitation, the Iberian thrust his sword into the man’s stomach. His mouth fell open soundlessly as if in surprise. His eyes clenched tightly in pain, he immediately dropped lifelessly to his knees. The women and children screamed in terror. The Iberian’s two companions stormed into the dark room from the bright sunshine and slaughtered them quickly.
One of the men began searching the bodies and another swept pottery jars off a shelf on the wall. The jars smashed on the floor. The third man grabbed the looters by the scruffs of their necks and flung them away.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked angrily. “Burn the place,” he said to the torchbearer who had come in after the men.
“But they might have money,” one of the looters said in a hurt voice.
“What do you think you’re going to find here? Nothing! Now, burn it!” he ordered the torchbearer, noticing that he had paused for the looting. “You others — out!” He kicked at them as they scampered out the door.
Outside, he watched as flames burst from the windows and soon engulfed the entire structure. Nearby a field was burning. Wagons had been overturned and animals killed. Men with swords and torches, Iberians mostly but some Africans, spread across the landscape, sowing panic and destruction. He could hear the cries of women, frantic and whimpering.
At one of the villages on the Cape of Mylae, the men tried to put up a resistance. There must have been a dozen of them and they formed a line in front of their tiny wooden granary building. Set upon a rough stone base, the structure sat high off the ground. An open-faced shed where wagons were unloaded leaned against one side. It was the storehouse for the wealth of the village and the men, armed with their old swords and pitchforks and wooden hoes, were determined to defend it. Much of the rest of the village was already in flames, the people run off or killed.
The Carthaginians laughed at the motley picket line, until one of the Iberians, who had expected the foolhardy men to flee at his approach, was gouged with a wooden hoe and then set upon by a frenzy of thrusting blades and stabbing pitchforks. The smiles quickly faded and the retribution was swift and thorough. In a matter of moments, twelve dead Mylaeians lay hacked to pieces before a fiercely burning granary building. The lean-to was torn down by bare hands, and thick black smoke billowed from the rapidly disintegrating structure as the flames reached to the sky. A single horseman escaped the village.
“Let him go,” the Carthaginian officer said, restraining his soldier with an iron grip on his fleshy upper arm.
“Let him go?” the man cried, disbelieving his ears.
“How far are we from Messana?”
“What difference does it make? Are we going to let him flee all the way to Messana?”
“How far?” The Carthaginian’s fingers dug deeply into the man’s arm. He winced in pain.
“I don’t know. Twenty miles?” He cried out, and wrenched his arm from the officer’s grip.
“Half-a-day’s ride,” the Carthaginian said with a smile. “By the end of the day, the Romans in Messana will know that the Carthaginians have come to Mylae.”
The soldier scampered off, rubbing his sore arm, and the officer remounted and trotted after him to join in the slaughter.
“This is where I shall fight the Romans,” Hannibal told his captain aboard the King of Epirus. “Right here at the Cape of Mylae.”
“What if the Romans don’t come?” the captain asked.
“Oh, but they will have to,” Hannibal said with a smile. “It is why they built their fleet, to put an end to our raiding. If they abandon their allies to their fate now, their honor will be damaged beyond repair.”
“The Romans could come up with a million excuses not to bring their fleet out, Admiral,” the captain said, sneering.
/>
“I will ravage the coast all the way to the walls of Messana itself, if I have to,” Hannibal said. “But the Romans will fight.”
The septireme lay at anchor 200 yards off the coast near Mylae in northeastern Sicily. Hannibal had thrown out a picket of fast triremes to the east to warn him the moment a Roman sail crested the horizon. Other ships had anchored in the harbor and Boodes had drawn up the rest of the fleet on the beach. There he had constructed a naval camp on shore to protect his ships and act as a base for his 5,000 marines out ravaging the countryside.
Hannibal and his captain made their way to the aft of the ship and climbed the ladder down to the longboat tethered closely to the stern. Rowed by eight men, they made their way toward Boodes’ camp. As they approached, Hannibal saw Boodes pacing and conferring with officers as he fretted over some detail of the encampment.
“Admiral Boodes!” Hannibal called in greeting, as he stepped out of the longboat and into the surf. The ships of Boodes’ disembarked marines rested all along the beach, their mooring lines stretching across the sand.
Boodes stopped and held up his hand, smiling. His gray hair had lightened noticeably since Acragas. It was almost a gleaming white now, contrasting vividly with his bronzing skin, a result of long days on the decks of his ships. Hannibal thought the man looked healthy and he noticed a spring in his step that had never been apparent before — very different from the sallow politician he had first encountered in Carthage before the war.
“A beautiful day for a battle, eh, Boodes?” Hannibal called as he drew near. He was also finding that the councilman had acquired a taste for battle, prompted perhaps by his victory at Lipara. He had become a warrior in Sicily as surely as he had always been in Carthage.
“If we can rouse an enemy!” Boodes replied.
“Ah, but we’ve enemies aplenty, Boodes!” Hannibal said, laughing. “Never a shortage of those!”
“It is our fate to constantly fight the hydra,” Boodes agreed. “No sooner do we lop off a Scipio than we find ourselves confronting a Duilius!”
The War God's Men Page 32