Marathon: Freedom or Death lw-2

by Christian Cameron

  We sailed due east with a strengthening breeze at our backs, and the water tore down our hulls, and we sang hymns and drinking songs. Miltiades sent an oarsman over the side, and he called out to each ship as it passed, ordering us to prepare to turn to port and form line ahead facing north when the red square flew again. I understood well enough, and I expect that all the other captains did, too — again, Dionysius’s training paid off.

  Opposite us, the Phoenicians and the Aegyptians didn’t react to our manoeuvre, but carried straight forward under oars. The Aegyptians were in a mix of heavy ships and pentekonters, light ships that we Greeks would no longer put in the line of battle.

  We got three stades to the east before they reacted, and by that time Miltiades’ Ajax was even with the eastmost ships in the Phoenician division, so that we were actually threatening to outflank their fleet. For those of you who have never fought ship to ship, and I think that’s every one of you, a rowing ship is most vulnerable to a ram in the flank, or the long side of the ship, where the bronze beak can roll you over or split the planks of your side and leave you to swim in the deep dark sea. Or sink in your armour and feed the fish.

  We watched them with the avidity of men watching a sporting event. Late — very late — the tip of their crescent began to turn east to face us, but they were rowing and we were sailing, and although they were able to keep pace, their squadron began to string out over the sea, losing all hope of formation. We were strung out too, but the wind moves at the same speed for all, I suppose, and we still held our line. And they were rowing flat out to race against us.

  Miltiades was the best fighting sailor I served under. Later, every man would praise Themistocles. He was a rabble-rouser and a politician, and he made Athens the greatest sea power in history, but Miltiades — like Dionysius of Phocaea — was a pirate and a seaman.

  We raced two more stades to windward, and the breeze continued to grow behind us — the hand of the gods, we said to each other. Miltiades began to wave, and I sent a runner to signal Stephanos, astern of me. We were about to turn.

  Miltiades stood on the helmsman’s bench of Ajax, the red square bundled under one arm, his other arm hooked in the bent wood of the trireme’s stern, watching the ships behind me. On mine, Black had the bow full of sailors standing about the boatsail mast, and Mal had the oars out and peaked, ready to stroke. Galas had a grin from ear to ear, the oars steady under his arms, ready to turn.

  ‘Prepare for a hard turn to port,’ I roared. ‘On my command!’

  By the gods, I thought, this is going to be glorious, win or lose. I had seldom gone so fast in a trireme — the wind directly astern had such power. I wondered if we could carry any of it through the turn.

  I also noted that Miltiades was stiffening his ship by sending his marines and extra deck crew to the windward side, and I followed suit. Anything to get that railing down as we turned — or rather, anything to keep the leeward rail out of the water. I’d never heard of a trireme rolling over in a turn, but I didn’t want to be the first one to do it, either.

  Heartbeats — my heart thudding against my chest, as if it would pulse right through the new Persian armour I wore. The hushed expectancy — the sound of the wind, and a gull screaming.

  Miltiades let fly the red cloth, and I raised my fist.

  ‘Hard to port,’ I called.

  Galas called his orders, and long training and good discipline told. Every port oar dipped together, and touched water — held. The starboard oars gave way. The ship heeled like a chariot on a turn — over, over farther — until my heart was in my throat and every man on deck had to hold the rail, and the port-side rowers had their oars so deep in the water they couldn’t withdraw them. Somewhere amidships there was a scream as an oar broke and a man took the shaft in his guts.

  And then we were around, and the sun was shining, and our ram was pointed at the Phoenicians, and we were racing like a spear thrown by Poseidon for the flank of the enemy line. Miltiades was around in style, and Stephanos was at my side like an eager dog — our line filled out even as I watched. The Cretans were no slower, and the Chians trailed away in some confusion, but that only served to make our line look longer.

  As soon as the Phoenicians saw us turn, they began to turn to meet us, but they were fifty or so individual ships, not a squadron. And their rowers were tired.

  The wind was so strong that it was pushing us even with our turn, even with our sails down. I began to eye the beach and the rocks at the foot of the bay — the east end — with a professional eye.

  Then I ran amidships to the command platform.

  ‘Diekplous,’ I called to the helmsman. ‘Oar-rake and right through. Then turn upwind — west.’ Miltiades and I were facing four or five of the fastest Phoenician vessels, but they were the very eastmost. And if we oar-raked them, there was no point in lingering — they’d never come back to the battle. Right? Understand, lad? Because if we broke their oars, they couldn’t row, and Poseidon would take them to the bottom of the bay and wreck them. Got it, my blushing beauty? I’ll make a navarch of you yet, my dear.

  Galas tapped his oars — a little to the west, and a little more, to compensate for that wind. Our rowers were pulling perfectly. My ship was half a length ahead of Miltiades when we engaged the first Phoenician. I can’t be certain, but I think we were the first to engage that day.

  Galas overcompensated for the wind, and we crossed the bow of our target fifty feet out — a deadly error had we been moving at the same speed, but we weren’t. We were faster, and he leaned hard, having learned his lesson, and Mal called for extra effort from the port-side oars, and we heeled over again and slammed home into the Phoenician’s cathead, shattering his row-gallery with the reinforced beam at the top of our ram. The whole starboard side of his ship seemed to explode as our beak ripped down the benches, and his seams opened and he was gone under the waves. That’s what speed does for you in a fight.

  ‘West!’ I roared, elated. It was the cleanest sea kill I’d ever seen. Apollo was at my side and the liberation of Greece was at hand.

  Miltiades’ men were cheering as they rammed the second Phoenician and went straight at the third, rolling him over, two kills in the time it takes to tell the story. Stephanos’s helmsman made the same error as Galas, overcompensating for the wind, and he missed his diekplous and swept past, but as luck would have it his bow caught the enemy ship’s oars at the end of a sweep and broke them, killing as many oarsmen as our more spectacular strike.

  Some ships missed their attacks altogether, and after our initial success, the Phoenicians rallied and struck back, but their rowers were tired and the only ship they killed was one of Nearchos’s, rammed amidships with its beak stuck in its prey, as can happen when a ship strikes too hard.

  At least ten of their ships died in that first strike. We had lost our god-sent speed now, but I had led the turn west, and other ships had fallen in with me. Miltiades was behind me, gathering up our stragglers, and the Chians were just engaging to the south — that is, on my left.

  The bulk of the Phoenician squadron was ahead of me, and they were in confusion, because they couldn’t choose whether to turn south and face the Chians or east and face me.

  I was back in the bow, looking for their navarch. Somewhere in that huddle of ships was the command ship, and there lay the most glory, the most fame and a chance to kill the head of the Hydra.

  But I couldn’t make him out in the time I had. The ships closest to us had chosen to fight us as the most immediate threat, and we obliged, hurtling towards a well-manned ship at full speed. He had good rowers, and the collision threw me flat to the deck. We must have struck bow to bow, but his bow gave way — Tenedos worm, or dry rot — and his ship settled like a rock, even as his marines came over our bow like hungry wolves, and died, spitted on the massed spears of our marines.

  I turned to Black, who stood behind my shield as if he was my hypaspist. Arrows had started to fly, and he was a target as muc
h as me.

  ‘If every Greek kills two Persians, we’ll win,’ I said happily.

  He shrugged. ‘The biggest fight I ever saw,’ he said. He rubbed his jaw. ‘But I’ve seen a few, sir. This luck can’t last.’

  Nor could it. By then, we were like an arrow in the guts of an animal. We’d wounded the Phoenicians, but we hadn’t killed them. My ship was scarcely moving and now my rowers were tiring. The first flush was over and there was still a sea of Phoenicians to fight.

  ‘Boys need a rest, lord!’ Mal shouted in my ear.

  I caught Idomeneus’s eye. ‘We board,’ I said. I ran back along the catwalk. ‘Well rowed,’ I called down into the thranites as I went past overhead. ‘Rest in two minutes!’ Down in the lower decks, they have little idea what is passing overhead — victory, defeat, death — hard to tell when all you see is the arse of the man above you and the length of his oar.

  I got to the helmsman’s station with a shower of arrows from a long ship ahead. I caught one on my shield.

  ‘Lay me alongside that bastard,’ I said. ‘We’ll board him and give our boys a rest.’

  In fact, I was aiming at the northernmost ship in the Phoenician squadron — a ship at the ‘back’ of their now utterly confused pack. I hoped that by coming up the north side of this vessel, I’d get a few minutes’ respite from the arrows of the rest.

  He was having none of it, and he manoeuvred, and we manoeuvred, like two cats fighting in the dust — and we swept past each other at close range. There was a tall man in a Greek helm on the deck, and Idomeneus shot him in the throat — a wonderful shot, and he fell straight over the side.

  Then we were past, and there was another Phoenician close behind — a heavy ship like ours.

  He was apparently taken by surprise that we were so close, and our ram struck just aft of his bow, but he had his oars in and our momentum was too little and the angle too steep for a kill.

  That was fine with me, and my rowers. We coasted down his side with a keening screech.

  ‘Marines!’ I called. ‘Deck crew!’

  Black had an axe in each hand — long-handled axes of the kind that horsemen carry. Axemen die like lambs in a sea-fight — no shield, no defence. I feared for him and my investment, but I needn’t have worried.

  As we slowed, I stepped up on the rail and took an arrow on my shield. I didn’t wait for our grapples to go home. I leaped.

  I had done this twenty times, yet I missed my footing and fell over the top bench. An enemy oarsmen kicked me, but his kick hit a lot of armour and I was getting up when the enemy marines came for me. I should have died, but an axe — a full-weight axe — flew right through the hide face of the first marine’s shield and into his arm. Blood blew out through the shield, and I resolved on the spot never to go to war with the Libyans. Before then I had never seen a man throw an axe.

  Black threw his second axe into the next man, and it hit poll first — not with the blade — but the poll hit the man in the temple and down he went.

  Then I was up, and killing. I only remember Black and his axes — the rest is a blur — and then I was on their command deck with Idomeneus under my shield, shooting their officers at the distance a man could spit while I covered him and killed anyone who came for me. There were two Persian noblemen, and some Mede guards, and a noble Phoenician in scale armour from head to knee. He had a beard as long as his scale shirt, and Idomeneus shot him in his unarmoured face while the remnants of his marines tried to cover him — ineptly — with their shields.

  The rowers were all Phoenicians, and they fought, as if to disprove everything I said earlier, but that was the navarch’s ship, honey, and he had the best of everything, and Apollo had given him to my spear. So my own rowers had to arm and come over the rail. It was ugly and went on far too long. If I had to guess, I’d say that the only enemy rowers who lived through the slaughter were those who leaped the rail and swam. Maybe six, out of two hundred men.

  That’s the hard way to take a ship. And when the rowers fight — Poseidon, that’s ugly. I have no idea how long it took, but it didn’t get my rowers the rest I had intended against a nice effeminate enemy.

  At Lade, there were no easy enemies.

  There was cheering from the west. The haze over there was burning off, but not enough to give me a clue what was happening.

  I went back aboard the Storm Cutter and found Galas in the bow with a handful of oarsmen. Water was coming in just forward of the first rowing bench. It wasn’t coming fast, but it was coming in all along the seams.

  To the north, a smaller Phoenician was angling out of their mob, looking for a fight. Our ‘rest’ was over. He spotted us and started towards us from about a stade away.

  I looked back at the leak. It was a hard moment for me, in a day that was full of them.

  ‘He’s finished,’ I said.

  Storm Cutter’s bow must have been damaged when he crushed the lighter Phoenician. My first ship. He was sinking under my feet. On a calm day, I’d have run him up a beach and saved him, rebuilt the bow, retimbered him — anything to save him. But in the middle of the greatest naval battle we’d ever seen, I had only one choice.

  ‘Into the Phoenician,’ I said.

  By then, we’d wiped out their rowers, and men were hanging listlessly by the benches, but Galas and Mal and Black got the sailors and the oarsmen to their places — bodies flung over the side, oars coming out through the ports.

  We were too slow. The lighter Phoenician was coming at us from the north, already up to ramming speed and turning to get the best possible angle. But he was lining up on an abandoned, sinking ship. He had no way of knowing that we were all in his own command ship, or that it was already taken and the bodies gone.

  It stank of blood and shit, but we had some life in us yet. We poled off with anything we could get our hands on — broken oars, spears, boat-pikes. Our first five strokes were so ragged that I was ready to despair, and Mal cracked his voice screaming, but the new ship was a spear-length longer, and half our oarsmen were in unfamiliar benches, a few on the wrong side altogether.

  We had just enough way on us to row clear of the abandoned Storm Cutter. He served us one more time, taking one more victim with him into the deep. Wounded as he was, the Phoenician was over-eager and rammed home amidships at full speed. His ram cracked timbers and the water poured in, and Storm Cutter quickly filled and sank — still stuck to the Phoenician’s ram. His rowers backed water like heroes, seeking to withdraw their ram, but their bow went down and down, as if Poseidon’s mighty hand had them by the bronze.

  They might yet have made it, but Nearchos of Crete shot from under our stern and hulled them neatly amidships while they were utterly defenceless, and they were dead men.

  The cheering from the west was louder now.

  We could feel it. The Phoenicians — their best — were shying off. Their navarch was dead, and no one was giving them orders, and the northernmost ships turned for the beach and ran.

  We lay on our oars and panted, and some men laughed, and others wept. We had been close to death. I could feel the scythe on my cheek.

  Behind us, while we did nothing, the handful of Chians under Neoptolemus harried the last Phoenicians to withdraw, and we had eighteen ships when Miltiades came past us and ordered us to form on his right. Ajax had a scar on her port-side timbers where a Phoenician ram had only just failed to get a kill, but otherwise he still looked like the mightiest ship on the Bay of Lade.

  Just south of me, a pair of Chians carried the last Phoenician ship in our part of the battle, by boarding.

  None of us, to be honest, could believe it. I suppose we expected that we’d get stuck in and the Lesbians would have to come and rescue us after they broke the Aegyptians, but we’d done it ourselves.

  Miltiades harried us into line. The Phoenicians were re-forming on the Mycale shore in front of their camp. Forty ships or more — against eighteen — and we’d routed them.

  I drank off a cante
en of water and passed around another of wine.

  As it came back to me, Black made a noise of disgust. He was looking over the sea to the west. He spat in the sea, drank from the wine and handed the canteen to Idomeneus.

  ‘We’re fucked,’ he said.

  I turned around. I can remember that moment as if it was today, this morning’s breakfast beer. Until I turned, I was a hero in a victorious fleet, and we had just broken Persia’s sea power, and I was going to be a prince in Boeotia with Briseis at my side.

  The rising sun had finally burned of the haze.

  We were alone.

  Strictly speaking, we weren’t alone, and I’ll leap ahead and tell what happened, because from my deck it was hideously confusing. Just accept my word, children — we spent the rest of the day in an exhausted rage of fear and betrayal and confusion.

  The Samians had changed sides.

  Not all of them, of course. Some remained loyal to the rebellion, and more fled the treachery, although some men would say they were the worst cowards of all, taking no side. Of a hundred ships, eleven stayed with us and fought to the end. Those eleven tried to fight a hundred Phoenicians and every man aboard died trying, and the men of Samos still have a stele to them and their captains in the agora of their city.

  But Aeaces, the former tyrant of Samos, had bought the aristocrats among them, and Dionysius of Samos (not to be confused with our mad navarch, Dionysius of Phocaea) changed sides, the bastard.

  The treachery of the Samians left the Lesbians to the fates. Epaphroditos chose to die, and he led his own men — the men of Methymna and Eresus — into the enemy, and they took many of the Cilicians down with them. But the Mytilenians chose another path, hoisted their sails and ran for it — twenty ships that we needed desperately.

  In the centre, the Chians saw they were being deserted and did the noblest thing of all. They stayed together and resolved to cut their way out. They had no idea we had won on the right — who would have expected it of us? — so they hurled themselves against the mass of levies and mercenaries in the centre. That was the chaos that greeted us when the haze finally burned off, so that we couldn’t see any of our ships at first because we didn’t think to look for them behind the line of Aegyptians facing us.