The Last of the Wine

by Mary Renault

  There was a great shock and grinding of timbers, shouts from the deck, howls and screams from the rowers' benches below. I was thrown to my knees, and barely held on. As for the Spartan officer, I don't know if I hit him, and it made no difference. The rail of the catwalk, which is flimsy in most ships, split with the shock and over he went. His arm came out, clutching at air; then he met the green sea and sank in his armour like a stone. It may be he was their latest general, Kallikratidas, who was lost overboard in just this way during the battle: Lysander's greatest rival in war, and in honour much his superior; by all accounts, a great-hearted soldier and a thorough gentleman. If he had not been too proud to survive defeat, much might have been altered afterwards.

  At all events, he died with his last work done, for the ram had gone right through our side. If it had not been for the ship's great hempen girdle, bound round her stem to stern, I think she would have split in two. As it was, as soon as the Spartans had staved us off, the sea came pouring in.

  I sent a last javelin after the Spartan ship, an act of rage as useless as a child's crying; then I leaped down to get some order on deck. Lysis had gone below to deal with the rowers. I whistled up the soldiers and got them into a moving chain, baling. The seamen having the buckets, we had only our helmets to use. We slid and splashed about, while the seamen tried to fish up the ballast for throwing overboard. Our corselets hampered and chafed us; armour was not made for working; but a man who throws away his arms in battle throws away something more, as well as his reputation after. When I saw someone fidgeting with a buckle, I gave him a look that sent him back to work with a red face. It could not be long before the fleet turned back to help us; the Spartans were in flight all along the line; and no one was going to say if I could help it that the men of the Siren were picked up in the hour of victory looking like a rabble in rout. From below I heard Lysis' voice encouraging the rowers. I could not see him (I was standing at the hatchway, passing the filled helmets up on deck) but the mere sound of him did me good.

  When the crew could not get down to the ballast any more, they started throwing the stores over, and then the spare tackle. When I saw the shields going, I looked the other way. Two or three hurt rowers had been carried up on deck. One, who had been hit by the ram itself, was clearly dying. The others had been caught by the leaded looms of the upper-tier oars, which are counterweighted because of their length, and looked badly knocked about. I caught the eyes of one of them fixed upon me, black eyes with a clear white rim; he looked as if he hated me; but men understand each other at such times for better or worse, and I knew he hated anyone with two good arms, who could save himself in the sea.

  Meantime the pilot and some of the hands had got the great sail lowered over-side, and were trapping it over the breach with hawsers run below the keel. It stanched the wound of the ram, and though it was clear she was making water all over her hull, the baling did begin to gain a little. I looked about, as a wave lifted us, in search of help, but all the ships I could see were in trouble themselves. One of them went down as I watched. She settled stern first, her ram rearing up like the horn of a unicorn; then she slid backward, and the water was full of little black heads. I shouted out some nonsense to the men to take their minds off it.

  Lysis now came on deck, and split us into shifts, two on and one off, to give us some rest. The men were pleased; but he had gone up first to the deckhouse roof, and I guessed it meant no help in sight yet. The slaves were working along with the rowers. Their benches were under water, but none had been lost; Lysis never kept them shackled at sea. Presently my rest turn came, and I went over to him. How goes it, Alexias? he said, and then, You handled the hoplites very well. He was never too much pressed to think of such things.

  The trierarch went overboard, I said, for what it's worth. Did you see any of our ships? He did not answer at first; then he said, Yes, I saw them. They were hull down, running before the wind. I stared and said, But the enemy will be out of Lesbos the moment he gets this news. Our work's done; why don't they come for us? — I daresay, he said, they want to cut up the Spartans getting away. But there was a note in his voice which I had not heard since the day at Corinth, when he lay in the temple of Asklepios.

  I felt a bitterness beyond speech; presently I said, Alkibiades would have come back. Lysis nodded. I said, How many times have we gone to help the lame ducks, and lost a prize by it? Just then we wallowed into a wave, and shipped enough water to undo a good spell of baling. He said, The ship has been stripped; now it is time to lighten the men. I knew what he meant.

  He went over to the hoplites. Well, friends, the enemy has run. No Spartan can boast of seeing us throw away our arms. What we would not give up to men, we can offer to Father Poseidon. Gentlemen, unarm.

  I worked away at the wet straps of my armour, trying to be quick with it. He had made me a soldier, and it was his due that I should do it before him. The corselet of Archagoras, with its gold studs and its Gorgon, came away from me. I walked over the wet deck, and dropped it in the sea.

  Just then Theras the pilot came up and said, You're none too soon, Lysis. I looked at the weather and saw he was right. With your permission, he said, I'll get the deckhouse broken up. There was no need to say more; one does it at the end, to get spars for the swimmers. Lysis said, Very well. Break up the boat too. We carried a little one, for places where we could not beach, to get water and stores. Theras looked at him; he said, How many will she take, in this sea? — Four, said Theras. Five maybe. — She'll give planks for ten or twelve. Break her up.

  I went back to my baling again, and soon heard the crash of the axes. But presently there were other sounds. I told the men to get on without me, and ran on deck. Four of the seamen had turned their backs on the boat and their axes on their fellows. They meant to get away in her, and the riot was spreading. Already there were enough men fighting for the boat, to have swamped her if they had got in, just as Lysis had foreseen. Just then I saw him striding towards the scrimmage, unarmed.

  All this was in a moment. But I remember thinking, Has he still such faith in men? Amidships, below the broken deckhouse, there were a few javelins left in the rack. I snatched one up. Lysis was speaking to the men, most of whom had lowered their axes and looked ashamed. But behind him, the man whose eyes I had read beforehand was swinging back an axe-blade over his bare head. I threw, calling on Apollo. The point went deep, just left of the backbone; the weight of the axe swung the man backward, to fall upon the shaft. I think it went through his heart. All the javelins were sharp on the Siren. It was one of the things I saw to myself.

  When they were back at work again, Lysis came over to me. You told me once, he said, that your life was mine. You have taken back your pledge again. I smiled and said, Not for long. There was a great wave coming for us; when it broke I thought we should founder at once, but we limped on a little longer. I found Lysis' hand in mine; he had caught it to keep me from being washed overboard. He said, I wonder what Sokrates is talking about now.

  We looked at one another. After so much action we were short of words, and felt no need of them. I thought, It is finished, then: as it is now, will the god receive it.

  Someone came running over the deck to us shouting, Land! We stared where he pointed, at a dim grey loom of little islands, beyond the tossing seas. Lysis said to me, Where's the water now? I looked into the hatchway. Over the second-tier benches. He nodded, and blew his whistle to call all hands. He had just told them there was land in sight, and pointed it out to them, when the next sea hit us.

  She gave a great sick stagger, heavy and dull; then she foundered, on an almost even keel, quite slowly. I think if Lysis had not shouted to me to jump, I should have stood there, to feel the deck under my feet, till the suck of her sinking pulled me after her.

  I don't recall very clearly the time while I was in the water. I remember I had a bit of planking at first, but it was too slight to bear my weight and kept dipping under. I let it go impatiently, then th
ought, It was my life I threw away then; well, it is done. I did not know east from west; the seas tossed and half choked me; I said to myself that it would be better to sink now and die quickly, but the life in me was stronger than reason and struggled on. All around me in the sea was shouting and crying; I heard someone calling again and again, Tell Krates not to sell the land! Not to sell the land! till his voice was cut off in the middle. My ears roared with water; when I came up there was still shouting, though less than before; something in my head said, Listen, attend, and again I thought, How can I? I have enough to do. Then I listened; and the voice of Lysis was shouting Alexias! Alexias! Alexias! I hailed him back and thought, Well, we have spoken to one another. Then I heard a swimmer gasping near by, and spitting out water, and Lysis was there with one of the stern-oars, pushing it towards me.

  I got my hands on it, then, coming to myself a little, said, Will it bear two? — You can see it does. It satisfied me at the time, being half-dazed, and used to believing what he said. I don't think he did more than push it along, to help me forward.

  We swam a long time, for days and nights it seemed to me. As weariness grew on me, my body forgot its lust to live; there was a heavy pain in my breast; and presently a time came when rest seemed the only thing beautiful and good. I was so dull of mind that I would have let go the oar, and slipped away without a word; yet at the last my soul stirred for a moment, and I said, Goodbye, Lysis. Then I let go. But I felt a great tug at my hair and rose again. Hold On. he said, You fool, we're close to land. But I cared only to be still. I can't, Lysis. I'm finished. Let me go. — Hold on, curse you, he said. Do you call yourself a man? I don't remember all he said to me. Afterwards, when I lay in the shepherd's house on the island, coming to myself, I felt my mind all bruises I could not quite account for, as a man might feel his body who had been beaten while half-stunned. I think he called me a coward. At all events, one way or another he convinced me that letting go would be like dying with a wound in the back. Later on at night, while we sat dressed in old blankets, drinking black bean soup by a driftwood fire, he began to apologise, but in rather general terms, hoping I had forgotten. So when I saw what he wanted, I said I had.

  We two were the only survivors of the Siren. Twenty-five Athenian ships were lost in the battle, the greater part of them with all hands.

  It was nearly a month before we got back to the City; for the island was a little place, where few but fishermen ever put in. At last we got a Lesbian ship, and made our way back from there. I got home to find the household in mourning for me, and my father with shaven head. He looked old and ill, and was so much moved at seeing me that I was confused by it, and hardly knew what to say. I suppose he may have blamed himself for my leaving home and going to sea. For my own part, time had taught me to see in it only the conjunction of planets and the hand of fate. My mother was much calmer, and said she had dreamed I was not dead. My sister Charis danced about us on her long legs, and complained of the beard I had grown on the island, and would not kiss me till I took it off.

  Later, when the house was quieter, and I had told my story, my father said the City was very angry with the generals, and had dismissed them from their command. They had written home various excuses, saying in one breath that the storm was too high for them to turn back for us, and, in the next, that they had told off two junior officers to do it. As one of these was Thrasybulos, and the other Theramenes, whom we had found perfectly reliable in the field, I guessed this must have been an afterthought when the fleet was safe in harbour. Probably half of us had gone down before they started out. Their choosing Thrasybulos as a scapegoat made me angrier than ever. I said, When are they going to be tried?

  As soon, my father said, as they are all back. In the interests of justice, it had better be when the passion of the mob has cooled a little. I said, Let the mob save its pains, Father, and leave them to the men who got off the wrecks alive. We're too few to make a mob. We'll do them justice. I wish I had all their necks in one noose, and my hand on the rope. — You have changed, Alexias, he said, looking at me. When you were a child, I thought you too gentle to make a soldier. — I have seen a shipful of brave men betrayed since then. And on a won battlefield I threw away my arms. And, my anger returning with the memory, I said, If Alkibiades had been there, he would have laughed in their faces, and told them to get to the loom with the women; and he would have sailed alone. They can say what they like; but when he led us, we had a man.

  My father sat silent, staring into the bowl of his wine-cup. Then he said, Well, Alexias, what you have suffered I cannot make good to you; nor, I daresay, will the gods. But in the matter of armour, if I had been in the City when you enrolled as a citizen, you would have had a suit from me, like anyone else in our position. The estate is not what it was, but I can still take care of that, I am glad to say. He went to the big press and opened it. There was a suit of armour hanging there, nearly new. Take it, he said, to some reliable man, and get it made to fit. It is doing no good to anyone lying here.

  It was a very good suit. He must have had it made when he felt his strength coming back again. I need not have complained so loudly of throwing away my arms, to a man who had been stripped of his by the enemy. No, Father, I said, I can't take this from you. I'll manage some other way. — I daresay I forgot to tell you, Phoenix is dead. Let us admit that the time when we could afford new horseflesh is over; and marching is beyond me nowadays, I find. My shield is over there in the corner. Pick it up, and try it for weight.

  I picked it up, and put my arm through the bands. It balanced well, and was just about the weight I was used to. I said, Of course, Father, for me it's on the heavy side. But it's a pity to tamper with a good shield like this. Perhaps, if I exercise, I can manage it as it is.

  23

  soon afterwards, our rabble of generals got back to Athens; all but two who, making use of their skill in avoiding dirty weather, ran away to Ionia and never came home.

  Not since the day of the Herm-breaking had I seen such anger in the City. As it happened, the Feast of Families fell just before the trial. Instead of the usual garlands and best clothes, you saw everywhere the drowned men's kindred, dressed in mourning, their heads shorn, reminding friends and neighbours not to forget the dead.

  Presently came the day of the trial. I walked to the Assembly with my father; when I had been civil to his friends, I slipped off to find Lysis, but got caught instead in a knot of citizens, kinsmen and friends of the drowned, who begged my account of the battle. I think it was only now, with strangers about me, that I really knew my own bitterness. I told them everything, both what I had seen, and anything I had heard from others.

  It was the same all over the Pnyx; people jostled to get near one of the survivors, for we were few. The herald could hardly get quiet when the speeches began.

  Nobody felt inclined by now to waste much time on these fellows. When the prosecution proposed that one hearing would do for all six of them, I cheered with the best. I felt warmed with the anger round me; everyone seemed my friend. Then the defence jumped up and made a fuss. It was true there was something in the constitution against collective trials on a capital charge, proper enough, in the ordinary way, to protect decent people; but we all felt this was different. There was a good deal of noise. Just when the defence had made itself heard again, there was a commotion near the rostrum, and a sailor ran up. You could tell at a glance what his trade was, and there was a pause.

  You'll excuse me, friends, he said, using a sort of hail, I suppose the only way he knew to make his voice carry, for putting myself forward; but I took my oath. I was bosun's mate on the old Eleutheria. All I've got to say is, when she went down, I caught hold of a meal-bin, and it kept floating. There was a lot of my mates in the sea all about, and some of the marines, wounded mostly, and knew they couldn't last long. I heard someone shout out, 'Antandros,' that's my name, 'Antandros, if you get home, tell them we did right by the City.' And another says, 'And tell them what we
got for it. Drowned like dogs. You tell them, Antandros.' And I took my oath, which a man ought to abide by. So you'll pardon the liberty. Thank you.

  He went running down from the rostrum; there was a moment's silence, then a roar you could have heard at Eleusis. Someone shouted out that anyone who opposed the will of the people ought to be tried himself, along with the generals. We cheered our throats dry. It felt like giving the paean, or being drunk at the Dionysia, or like the last lap of the race when the crowd wants you to win. But not quite like.

  So it was put to the presiding senators, whether the trial was in order, and there could not be much doubt of what their verdict would be, if only for their health's sake. But they seemed to be a long time about it; people began to whistle and call; till at length the crier stood up, and gave out that they could not agree.

  Where I was, we could not see them; but we made ourselves heard; especially when word was passed along that only one old man was standing out. We were asking only one life each from these cowards, who bore the guilt of hundreds; and they would die in more comfort than our friends in the rough autumn sea. People were asking each other who was this senile quibbler to set himself up a little jack-in-office chosen by lot for the day. Has he ever carried a shield? someone shouted; and I said, I suppose he has no sons. — Who is it? we called to those who were nearer. A voice shouted back, Old crackpot Sokrates, son of Sophroniskos the sculptor. As the shock of an icy stream to the drunkard stumbling and singing; as the alarm of battle to a man sweating in the bed of lust; so these words came to me. The noise and heat died in me, leaving me naked under the sky. I had been many, but now I was one; and to me, myself, grey-eyed Athene spoke from the High City, saying, Alexias, son of Myron, I am justice, whom you have made a whore and a slave.