by Tom Holt
So we stayed where we were, and whiled away the time by collecting and burying our dead. That was a miserable business, as you can imagine, but for some reason it distressed me far less than it did my fellow soldiers. I did keep well away from the spot where Little Zeus was killed, but otherwise I just got on with the job, which was very hard work, as anyone who has done it will testify. But I do remember that instead of the rather splendid and dignified ceremony which the Athenians generally use when burying their fallen comrades, we simply dug a series of big round pits like granaries and pitched the bodies in; and that we hadn’t dug them deep enough, and that in the end we were so sick of the thing that we couldn’t be bothered to dig an extra pit to accommodate the left-over bodies, so we just crammed them in as best we could and covered them over with cairns of stones to keep the dogs off. A lot of people, Gallicrates among them, weren’t at all happy about doing it that way, but for my part I couldn’t have cared less.
I didn’t even have the heart to kick Aristophanes’ head in for him when I saw him the next day, although properly speaking it was my duty to do so. Needless to say, he had got deeply involved in the Impeach-the-Generals Campaign, which was preparing the prosecution and condemnation of Nicias, Demosthenes, Menander and Eurymedon for when we got home. There is invariably such a campaign whenever an Athenian army takes the field; it frequently starts before the first battle has been fought, and in extreme cases has appointed its chairman and governing body before the troop-ships have left Piraeus. Anyway, Aristophanes was in his element, going over the proposed list of charges with some experienced political litigants and polishing up his speech for the prosecution; they had drawn lots for it and he had only got Eurymedon, which must have been a disappointment to him. I rather fancy he had set his heart on prosecuting Nicias or Demosthenes, both of whom he had, in his time, fearlessly championed in the Theatre. Anyway, Aristophanes had the nerve to deny that he had so much as seen me in the battle, let alone been saved from death by my intervention.
Several days passed, and I think Demosthenes managed to talk Nicias round, saying that whatever happened to them their first duty was to the men under their command, whose safety must come first. That was the sort of talk to give Nicias, and soon there was a healthy rumour going round that we would soon be on our way home. As you can imagine, there was general rejoicing at that. The entire army had had enough of Sicily and even the Great Peloponnesian War itself; I think the reaction was so strong because of the tremendous feelings of hope and expectation with which we had all set out, and which had now turned into abject despair. Men started talking about the enemy again (no one had mentioned them since the battle) and a few fire-eaters were already talking about teaching the bastards a lesson next time. As the rumours grew more and more substantial, and only the hardened pessimists refused to believe them, the camp started to come back to life and be recognisably Athenian once again. Assured that they would soon be safe at home, men started saying that it was a shameful thing to be running away like this, and that what they should really do was stay and give it another go — preferably by daylight, and unquestionably at sea, where there had never been the remotest threat to our supremacy. So eloquently did they express this view (being Athenian) that some people were actually convinced by it, and said as much to Nicias. That set him off again; was it his duty to make one last attempt to salvage the pride and good name of his city? Could he be a party to such a monumental act of cowardice? Had the ships’ captains made their weekly rations returns? And so on.
But I assume we would have gone, had it not been for the eclipse. That was a stroke of bad luck, I think. Because, as I have told you, quite a few idiots had talked themselves into thinking that we ought to stay and fight at sea, the eclipse was widely taken to be a sign from the Goddess that we were being dishonourable in giving up the fight after one reverse. The longer it went on, the more people started to mutter, and Nicias (who was very superstitious) was quite unnerved.
Now I have my own theory about eclipses, which is as follows. Obviously they are signs from the Gods; I don’t have anything to do with the blasphemous fools like Socrates who say that they are natural and meaningless. But my argument is that there is only one sun, and that when there is an eclipse, the sun must be blacked out all over the world. It is therefore highly presumptuous and arrogant of any individual person, group or nation to hold that this particular eclipse is a sign to them as against anyone else. For all we know, the eclipse might be a sign from Hera to the Ethiopians, or Poseidon warning the Odomantians of an impending earthquake. In addition, it is only reasonable to expect that when the Gods choose to warn us they will use several different methods at the same time; an eclipse and a flight of birds, and possibly a prodigy and a malformed sacrificial victim as well, simply in order to let the recipients of the message know that it is intended for them. Otherwise the system would break down completely; people who have nothing to fear would immediately break off whatever they happen to be doing at the time (which cannot be the will of the Gods) while the intended recipients of the warning would take no notice, having learned from experience that the majority of eclipses never have any special significance for them at all. Unless the Gods so arrange things that all the nations of the earth get into trouble and need warning at exactly the same time, I think my explanation is the only rational one.
Be that as it may. The Athenians took this particular eclipse as a positive order from Athena herself not to abandon the expedition, and so the expedition was not abandoned. Nor was it prosecuted with anything remotely resembling enthusiasm, mind you; it just lay dormant for a while as Nicias and Demosthenes went back into emergency session to work out between them, in addition to their more immediate difficulties, the purposes of the immortal Gods.
For their part, the Syracusans had no doubt whatsoever about the significance of the eclipse. It told them, in no uncertain terms, that unless they got a move on and finished off the Athenians while they had them on their knees, they were going to be in severe trouble before too long. It is not inconceivable that this interpretation was the right one. The Syracusans bustled about with their ships, deliberately practising the various standard naval manoeuvres in full view of our forces. Opinions on the quality of the sea-power of our enemy differed in the Athenian camp. Some of us, myself included, believed that they were demonstrating a high degree of skill and expertise which ought finally to dissuade us from any further involvement with them, especially by sea. Those of us who knew or professed to know anything about naval warfare were of the opinion that the Syracusans knew as much about the science of fighting at sea, both theoretical and practical, as various domestic animals of their acquaintance. As might have been expected with a gathering of Athenians, a suitably ingenious compromise was reached between the exponents of both interpretations; namely that the Syracusans were indeed a formidable enemy at sea as well as on land, and that the inept display they had mounted for our benefit was designed to lull us into a false sense of superiority which would provoke us into a disastrous battle.
After a few days of training, they attempted a minor amphibious assault on part of our line, and succeeded in running off many of our small number of cavalry horses. Encouraged by this, they followed it up with a full-scale attack by land and sea. When the order came for our men on land to form up I pushed my way into the front rank, since I was keen to test my immortality theory, which had become something of an obsession with me since the night-battle. I can honestly say that once it was clear that there was going to be a battle, all fear left me; I seemed to feel a sort of morbid calm, and as we marched out towards the enemy I suddenly understood why. They couldn’t kill me; I was dead already. I had been dead for days, ever since Epipolae. Arguably I had been dead ever since the plague, except that at the time I had been too young to understand, and had never stopped moving long enough for rigor mortis to set in properly. I said as much to Callicrates, who looked at me most strangely and asked about the blow on the head I ha
d received from the Syracusan whom Little Zeus had killed, so I could see that he could not understand.
The naval part of the battle was an utter disaster for our side, its only redeeming feature being the death, through his own incredible ineptitude, of our general Eurymedon. The defeat was not really mitigated by the fact that our land forces won a comparative victory (in which I, incidentally, played no part at all, since my section of the line was not engaged), in that we managed to prevent the Syracusans from burning those of our ships which they had not contrived to sink, and which had run for the cover of the shore.
It was this defeat, I think, that finally broke the spirit of our army. An Athenian believes in his navy as men believe in gods; and it was as if some ill-natured person —Socrates, say, or Diagoras the Melian — had just conclusively and irrefutably proved that the Gods do not exist. After the battle was over, everyone in the camp seemed utterly dejected. There was no panic or hysteria, just a total acceptance of the defeat. It was far worse than it had been after Epipolae; then, there had been fear and anger and considerable pain, but people had at least been busy, what with burying the dead and plotting against the Generals and looking after the wounded and having bad dreams at night. Now, nobody seemed interested in any form of activity. The dead bodies of our men bobbed up and down in the water of the harbour, but nobody could be bothered to take a boat out and pick them up. Nobody muttered about Nicias or Demosthenes. The wounded men were left to look after themselves, and many of them died — did I mention that our camp was in a fever-trap? —and nobody had any dreams at all, not even dreams of home. I tried to explain to everyone that this was in fact perfectly natural, since they were now all dead too. But such was the general apathy that nobody could be bothered to argue; and when Athenians refuse an argument, you can be sure that something is wrong.
A day or so after this, I was eating my meal (a pint of barley porridge and four olives) in solitary silence when someone came running into the middle of the camp waving his arms and shouting. Several people asked him mildly to stop, since they were trying to sleep, but this only seemed to encourage him. Finally, someone thought to ask him what the matter was, and he replied that the Syracusans were blocking the entrance to the harbour.
It took about half a minute for the significance of this to sink in; then there was the most extraordinary display of panic that I have ever been fortunate enough to witness. I expect you’ve seen an ants’ nest when the woman of the house pours boiling water into it; well, that’s the nearest thing I can think of to the Athenian camp at that moment. I was utterly fascinated by the sight, and I remember thinking that all the dead people had suddenly come back to life; which was rather pointless, because if the Syracusans blocked the harbour they would all be dead again very soon. Now I come to think of it, I didn’t panic at all; I sat there speculating what a good Chorus scene this would make — like that scene in the Agamemnon where the Chorus suddenly loses its unified voice and collapses into a group of gibbering individuals. No one had ever done it in a Comedy; it would be hell on earth to rehearse, of course, but the effect would be spectacular. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t be going home to Athens after all, and there would be no more plays, if the Syracusans succeeded in blocking the harbour. It seemed a pity, but not much more.
Apart from myself, the only person who didn’t seem to be panicking was a small, round man who was sitting in front of a tire eating a very thin sausage. His tranquillity and the sausage seemed to draw me to him, and I walked over to his fire and sat down on my helmet beside him. He looked at me and returned to his meal, and neither of us said anything for a while.
‘You don’t seem worried,’ I said at last.
‘I’m not,’ he replied with his mouth full.
‘Everyone else is.
‘You’re not.’
‘Yes, but I’m dead.’
‘Well, there you are, then. Your worries are over.’
He sounded like a man from the hill country, and I asked him where he lived. ‘Here,’ he said.
‘No, but before that,’ I asked.
‘Can’t remember,’ he replied. ‘Been here so long,’ he paused to swallow a lump of gristle, ‘that I just can’t recollect.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘A very long time.’
‘Tasty is it, that sausage?’
‘Be even better with a dab of honey. You got any honey?’
‘No.’
He had very big hands and forearms, and I guessed that he had once been a smith. He had that way of talking to you without looking at you that is unique to the trade. ‘So you’re not worried, then,’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Nothing’s going to happen,’ he replied.
‘What makes you think that?’ I said. ‘The enemy are blocking up the harbour. That means they aren’t going to let us escape. They mean to wipe us out to the last man.’
‘They won’t manage that,’ he said.
‘Don’t be too sure.’
‘They never manage to kill everyone,’ he said. ‘There’s always one or two that get away. There was two men escaped from Thermopylae, so the story goes.’
‘And you reckon you’ll be one of the survivors.
‘That’s right.’
‘Why you?’
‘Why not?’
Why not indeed? ‘Trade you a bit of that sausage for an onion.
‘Don’t like onions. Never did. Only thing that grew where I used to live.’
‘Before you came here?’
‘That’s it.’
I leaned forward and pitched a small log on to the fire. All around us, the Athenian army was winding itself up into a thick knot of terror.
‘I used to write plays,’ I said. ‘For the Festivals.’
‘Comic or tragic?’
‘Comic.’
He looked at me again, chewing vigorously. ‘I used to like the Comedies,’ he said. ‘Never went much on the Tragedies. Couldn’t see any point in making up sad stories. Gets you down, that sort of thing. Me, I always look on the bright side.’
‘I can see that.’
‘The one I used to like best of all,’ he said, ‘was that Eupolis. He was funny, he was. I liked him.’
‘Really?’
‘He’s dead now, of course.’
‘Of course.’ I smiled. The smith went on eating his sausage. ‘Are you dead too?’ I asked.
‘Don’t talk soft,’ he replied. ‘Do I look like I’m dead?’
‘I just wondered.’
‘There’s nothing in this world,’ he went on, ‘that can kill me.’
‘Really?’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘I feel like that sometimes.’
‘I don’t feel, son,’ he asserted firmly, ‘I know.’
‘That must be a comfort to you.’
He broke off a very small piece of sausage and offered it to me. ‘You want to know why I know?’
‘If you like.’ I popped the sausage into my mouth and chewed. It was obviously home-made, probably out of cormorant.
‘When I was a boy,’ said the smith, ‘my whole family got drowned in a ship. Not me, I swam ashore. Odd, that, ‘cos I can’t swim. So I get myself apprenticed to a smith, only he gets killed by robbers, and his wife and his sons too. Not me. I hid behind the anvil till they went away. So there I am a blacksmith, with a forge of my own and a little bit of land to scratch away in, and I’ve just got married and had a family when along comes the plague and kills the lot of them, except me. Well, this is a bit of a facer, but I’m not one to complain, I get on with my business, and now I’ve got a bit more land that came from my wife and I’m really quite comfortable, except my neighbours won’t have anything to do with me. They say I’m unlucky, which is a bit of a joke. I must be the luckiest person in the whole world by now.
‘And then I get called up to do my bit in the war, and they put me on a ship, and this ship sinks and
I’m the only survivor. I get ashore and fall in with some of our lads, and what happens but the whole lot of them get killed by the enemy — don’t ask me which enemy, mind, cos I’ve forgotten. Anyway, there I am in the middle of nowhere wondering what old Death’s got against me, when I get picked up by the enemy and taken along to the slave market, where I get sold to a Phoenician and bundled on board his ship. But I had no worries. I knew that ship was going to hit a rock and sink, and I’d be the only survivor; and I was right, too. Laugh? I nearly wet myself. Anyhow, I got back to Athens all right and carried on with my trade, and I’ve done all right for myself, got myself into the heavy-infantry class and everything. Then when old Demosthenes gets his fleet together he sends out for all the smiths he can get, and they pick me up, though I’m way over the age limit, and here I am. I’m telling you, son, I didn’t want to come on this. I really don’t fancy being the only survivor out of this lot.’
He made a vast encircling gesture, taking in the whole enormous camp. I shuddered slightly. I could see his point.
‘You came the same time as I did,’ I said. ‘I thought you said you’d been here a long time.’
‘It feels a long time, son. Nice talking to you.’
He got up, stretched his arms, and walked slowly away. I spat out the taste of the sausage into the fire and sat quietly for a while thinking of nothing much; then, for the first time since I remember — that is, since I got off the ship — I started to compose verse in my head. It was good, too, I realised, and I closed my eyes, so that the words would take in my mind and not blow away. I find that my mind is like a threshing-floor. Unless I close the doors of my eyes, the wind carries off the grain and the chaff together.