The Galley

by Paul Howard

  The Captain set down his cup and thought about this for a moment.

  “Why not send the fleet?” he asked. “Why send only one ship?”

  Severus poured another cup of wine and took a sip. “Because,” he answered, “a fleet would stand out. We have had trouble with pirates in the eastern Mediterranean. A fleet would be reported. The pirate’s intelligence has been very good lately.

  “A single ship, flying the rank of Senate might be able to get through, since it would probably pass for a diplomatic mission instead of a supply run.” The Captain weighed this for a moment before he spoke,

  “I was not aware of the pirate situation.”

  “Of course not,” Severus answered, “Nobody in Rome seems to be aware of anything that goes on out here. Before the fire, our Beloved Emperor occupied himself with performing like a monkey on the stage. Since the fire, all anybody talks about is the Christians!

  “I doubt that anybody in Rome even thinks about the Navy. But, the Senate says: ‘Send a single ship!’ So we send you. There is one thing in your favor though; the Antonia can show her heels to anything in the water. They cannot stop you if they cannot catch you!” The Captain put his hand to his chin and thought about this for a moment.

  “That is what this race was all about, was not it?” he asked. “You wanted the fastest ship! I wondered why an all-out race was staged for a speed trial.”

  Severus leaned forward and clearly showed his amusement at this comment. “You are a clever boy, Marcus,” he retorted, “And you are exactly right! Of course, the whole thing is quite sensitive. You will be under the guise of Senatorial orders but this is straight from the top!”

  This surprised the Captain.

  “The Emperor!” he exclaimed.

  “Nero is an idiot!” the general said. “This is from the Pro-consul himself!”

  He reached into a chart box and produced a scroll with the Symbol of the Imperial Senate. He handed it, cavalierly, to the Captain. “You are to deliver this to Corbulo personally by your own hand.”

  “Yes, sir!” the Captain snapped back. Severus smiled again.

  “Cheer up, Marcus. It is not such a bad run. Better than what the rest of the Septimus fleet will be doing. We are to cool our heels at Gibraltar, guarding the strait from ordinance smugglers.”

  He finished his cup and poured another, the wine was beginning to get the best of him. “We have got to keep the Britons and the Germans under foot,” he remarked, “Must not let them get their hands on Roman iron!” He chuckled contemptuously. “Personally,” he continued, “I would prefer to have you with me, but such is the Will of the Senate and the People of Rome!”

  The Captain sensed that this conversation could only go downhill from this point and he rose to his feet.

  “You can count on me! For the Senate and the People of Rome.” he said, and smiled at Severus, slyly.

  Severus added, “By the way, the engineers have come up with a solution to your steering problem. They are going to install a new device called a rudder, it responds better to the helm, and is much heavier against the sea.”

  “Thank you!” the Captain said, and saluted. Severus returned the salute half-heartedly, and the Captain turned to leave.

  “One more thing…” Severus said. The Captain faced him again.

  “That Centurion, is he your own man?”

  “I requested him, sir.” the Captain answered.

  “I do not blame you,” Severus remarked, “He is very capable! May the Gods watch over you, Marcus.”

  The Captain saluted and left the cabin. Severus looked after him and took a long draught from his cup.

  “…Nobody else in this damn empire will!” he said.

  There is really nothing more of the festival that is of interest, being the usual evening of drunkenness and sexual indulgence, of which we had no part.

  That night, as the parties wore down, the slaves were finally allowed to go below to the bilges and get some well-earned sleep. Shortly after I lay my head down, I heard three splashes in the water outside. A nameless burial at sea, like so much garbage, was the reward for the slaves who died in the service of Antonia’s glory. On the other ships a similar ritual was quietly performed by drunken men who cared for little but to get the burials over with and find a bed. As I tossed and turned on the cold, hard planking, I counted no less than forty-one such splashes from the other ships. I remembered 53’s words before the race as I went to sleep. He was right about our fate. We were no longer men. Only human garbage waiting for our turn to be dumped overboard.

  It was only a matter of time.

  12

  FALLING

  The following day the ship was outfitted with the new rudder. It was a gigantic assembly so large that a special crane was needed to lift it into place. Made of carved wood in layers, and many times thicker than a steerboard, it was held together by wooden dowels. It had a fixed mounting which was hinged. It took all day to install it and we did not put to sea until the following morning.

  The day was bright as we set out for Rhodes. The sea was calm and the wind favorable. The great new sail was unfurled, and the crew got their first look at the new emblem that would be our symbol. The old sail, with its charging horse, had been stowed away. It was met with mixed emotions, especially by the Centurion, who eyed it suspiciously.

  Presently the Captain made his appearance at the prow and the Centurion inquired about it. The Captain gave the cover story Severus provided, but the Centurion was no fool. His expression said all that the Captain needed to see, and he was invited to join him later so they could discuss it in private.

  As soon as we left Brundusium, the situation for the slaves took a turn for the worse. Urbano, disenchanted with the place he found himself, withdrew more from the crew and their workings. Now that the Captain was not breathing down his back, Gracchus turned to his old ways. The food became scarcer, and it was horrible.

  We now lived on a miserable gruel unfit to sustain a man’s energy. It was more garbage than grain. If we had been called upon to row very much I doubt many of us would have lasted long on such fare. Fortunately, the long voyage in the open sea called for sail and the new rudder proved to be very effective. The whole ship was more balanced, and close-hauling could be achieved with greater accuracy.

  But we were not forgotten, Gracchus and his men had petty tortures to amuse us with. Abuse and humiliation was now our daily fare. Suffice to say, that after repeated servings of his awful food and constant mistreatment, we were all wearing down, both physically and mentally. A man can take only so much degradation before it becomes a way of life, lowering his self-esteem and the will to go on.

  It is a strange phenomenon among men in captivity that they should attain a perverse empathy with their tormentors, but they do. Who were these drivers that made our lives so miserable? Many a story was told in the bilges about them, either because the slaves needed to tell stories about them, or perhaps, as a way of keeping up the Roman fascination for rumor.

  The drivers, Junius and Portax, were the easiest to fathom. Junius had been a Gladiator in the Eastern Provinces who had won his freedom and an Imperial purse, which he squandered on women, games of chance, and living beyond himself. Finally out of cash, he found a place with the slave franchise. Portax was once a galley slave himself. The scars on his back testified to that. He had managed to win the favor of Gracchus, who raised him from the pits to the catwalk.

  The story of Rufrius was less certain. The rumor was that he had once been an officer in one of the Northern Legions who, through reprehensible conduct, was discredited and broken of rank. The idea that he could ever have risen to the rank of officer in the legions was hard for me to grasp. I had served a season with the legions in my youth. There are strict codes of conduct for officers in the Roman Army and it is hard to imagine that Rufrius could ever have mustered either the discipline or intelligence required to make such rank.

  There were several stories about
Gracchus, one was that he had been a brigand himself who, through dishonest means, had bought himself a slave franchise in the North. Another tale had him a former member of a slave trading guild, who had been disfigured in the face as an act of revenge. The story is that he defiled a beautiful and extremely valuable virgin who had been selected for a noble of high rank.

  Another had him a renegade officer from the Eastern Provinces who had won his franchise in a duel with swords. I doubted all of them. Whatever else Gracchus was, he was certainly as complex as he was evil. I never knew his story, but I have no doubt it was as dark and terrible as his black soul.

  Our fifth day out saw another slave meet his doom. Rufrius had singled him out for mistreatment all day long and, finally, when he plied the lash on him as he walking by, something within the man snapped. He leapt from the pit and attacked Rufrius, grabbing the whip and strangling him with it. All the time, a steady stream of curses came out of him. So loud that all work stopped and the drivers, surprised by this, hesitated before trying to pull the slave off of him. The man fought with every ounce of his strength and the drivers could not get him off, in spite of repeated blows with both fists and the hilts of their whips.

  Just as the color began to leave Rufrius’ cheeks, Gracchus charged in with his blade and stabbed the slave in his right side, just below the ribs. At first, it had no effect, so Gracchus stabbed him repeatedly. Finally, whether from loss of blood, or weakness, the man released his grip and fell to the catwalk. Rufrius fell as well, choking and gasping for breath. His limbs quivered uncontrollably as he tried to regain himself. Meanwhile, Gracchus and the drivers laid into the slave with vicious kicking and whipping. Gracchus was really fond of kicking men on the ground, he had done it many times on this voyage, and we were only starting out.

  Finally, kicking was not enough for him, he began stomping on the slave’s head as hard as he could. After the seventh such blow a loud pop was heard, and Gracchus foot slipped off of his head. It now had a flat indentation in it. The gallery was filled with the pungent odor of the man’s excrement and the slave moved no more.

  By this time Rufrius had regained enough wind to feel enraged. He drew his sword and began slashing the body. It was a bloody, horrible scene to witness. Rest was called and the floaters were finally ordered to remove the remains. As they cleaned up the catwalk, 53 leaned close and whispered to me, “It happens sometimes. A man just snaps and cannot take it anymore. Now you know what I meant about pride.”

  I looked at him for a moment, puzzled by his statement. “Was it pride?” I asked. “Or simply the loss of the will to live?”

  53 smiled softly, “Is there a difference, Little Roman?” he asked. “When a man cannot take it, he dies. It does not matter why!”

  I knew that there was a lesson in what he was saying and he meant well. But I felt differently. I had always been taught that something that is intolerable should not be tolerated. I still felt that way, regardless of whether it was pride or not. My problem was that I had not yet found a way to deal with it and I told him so. I fully expected him to criticize me for this point of view, but he did not. For an instant, something else flashed on his face. In any other situation, I would have called it admiration. At the time, I thought it was pity for my thick-headedness.

  On our journey, we were also treated to visits from the mates, who availed themselves of our situation as they had before. But the price was going down, we were now poor specimens and our services were becoming less desirable. We were dirty all the time now. Nobody bothered to clean himself. The stench in the bilge was terrible.

  My bench-mate and I were one of the rare exceptions to this. As the men around me seemed to droop in their step more and more with each day, I fought the instinct to let go. Something in me just would not allow it. I was miserable, but alive. I intended to cling to that life, as my father had ordered me to. Maybe he would never know how I tried, but I would. Somehow, it kept me going.

  The things that broke the others down made me angry. I used that anger like a lame man leans on a crutch. Anything to prop myself up. If hate would keep me breathing I would learn a new religion. By the time we reached Rhodes, I had become the high priest of contempt for my warders. “If they knew what was in my heart, they would surely kill me.” I told myself. I kept it inside, as a secret unknown to them. Inner contempt was my survival tactic.

  A game I could play in my mind any time I wanted to. It was a healthy form of mental illness that a galley slave can learn, to keep some part of his inner self alive in a world that allowed neither comfort nor dignity. I had become desperately alone in myself. People said things but I heard nothing. I had become deaf to the hurts around me, as if made of stone.

  Every time Gracchus cast that stupid, round eye at me, I imagined spitting in it. Every time Rufrius spoke in his nasal wheezing, I mocked him. All in my head, of course. I had so festered inside that it was becoming hard to control at times.

  Once, I slipped in front of Gracchus and talked back. (A foolish move, I thought.). But he only smiled, as if it pleased him. Even stranger, the more hateful I became, the less they whipped me. As if I was the clay and they the makers who had come to admire their handiwork. I was finally beginning to understand what I saw in the eyes of my bench-mate that first day. Hate kept him going, too.

  The conversation in the bilges had diminished to nothing. Even those two brilliant men, the Greek and the Chinese, who used to discourse for hours on topics I could not understand, had fallen silent. The strange figures in charcoal faded on the planking.

  Another addition had come to Antonia at Brundusium: rats and insects had joined our company. I hate to admit it, but they proved a gift of the gods for us, as they were a welcome addition to our diet. To be honest, I never really liked the taste of the uncooked rat. The insects, however, were quite tasty. Flies were especially good. Cockroaches had a sweet under-taste that took some getting used to. No slave on our ship could afford to forego this indulgence, it was meat.

  Unfortunately there was not enough of it. You never really know what it is to be a galley slave until you have fought a man over the right to eat an insect. I knocked one man down over a blue bottle. The beetles were unpalatable. Their outer shells caught in the throat and caused choking. They tasted terrible anyway, so we just squished them, some slaves liked them that way. Not me.

  By the time we sighted the coast of Greece, it was mid-September. The chill and damp would hang over the sea. It seemed as if the cold had just moved into the bilge and hung there all the time. There were no blankets, of course. The slaves would sleep, huddled in groups, trying to get whatever warmth they could from each other. I slept with the Nubian, the Greek, and the Chinese.

  Of the latter, I can only say that, as I came to know him better my respect for him grew. He did not fester like the rest of us. A kind of peace seemed to be working within him. He was not jolly or cheerful. Nobody was. But he seemed to take everything around him in stride. I can only imagine the inner strength a man must possess to achieve that in our surroundings. I was starting to like him as much as I was capable of liking anyone at that time. He was pleasant company even when I was not.

  The Greek was different. He did not stew, he became sullen until it seemed that his face would be incapable of a smile. His eyes were so young and bright the first time I saw him. Now they saw only shadow. There was no cruelty around his mouth, only an expressionless resignation.

  The Nubian never changed. Whatever youth or joy he knew had left him long before we ever met. Now, he was hard and proud as the day I saw him. Yes, it was pride. He, who had lectured me to abandon pride, still preserved it within himself. And dearly he paid for it. Not with the lash or abuse, but with an inner torment. Of what he had been and what he had become. He quietly endured this private hell without complaint or comment. Once I came to know him better I could see it in him at times.

  Whenever I did see it, it made me feel empty inside. At every opportunity, he would criticiz
e me gently. It always had the effect of keeping me sharp. Why he made the effort, or called me ‘Little Roman’, I did not know. He never touched me or any other man with carnal intent. Whatever his reason was he kept to himself.

  I do not know what would have happened to me if events had not turned as they did. No doubt I would have ended chewing myself up with hate until I went mad, babbling in a corner of the bilge.

  But this was not to be. The gods have strange ways of amusing themselves, and I was to be their fool.

  We pulled through the inlet of Rhodes at midday. The low clouds hung over the coast when we arrived but started to burn away by the time we tied off at the harbor. Shortly after that Gracchus came down before us.

  “Pay attention,” he demanded, “I need six of you rats for cargo duty ashore!”

  A wave of general approval moved through the room. Gracchus smiled, sarcastically as Junius hollered at us to stop talking. He surveyed the gallery and gestured toward the Greek.

  “You, Number 17. Get up here!” he said.

  The Greek got up and did as he was told without hesitation. Rufrius placed shackles about his ankles and pushed him toward the stairs. Gracchus continued his selection and stopped at us. He looked right at me and a strange smile crossed his lips.

  “You two have not made any trouble yet,” he said, “Here’s your chance! Get up here.”

  I could not believe my luck, the Nubian and I quickly reported to Rufrius. Gracchus turned to Junius. “Do you have any suggestions?” he asked. Junius pointed at the Briton.

  “Number 127 Primus hasn’t caused any trouble.” Gracchus turned to him and smiled.

  “Alright, Monkey. Get up there!” As 127 moved to the front, Gracchus stared down at Number 150, a Gaul with lean features and narrow, strange eyes.

  “Want to get away?” he sneered at the Gaul, who did not answer. “Here’s your chance! Go on.”