Pertinax, and to port, further back, was the galley of Turgus, more amply manned, as men, later gathered, had come to the last galley nest.
More than once the galley turned, and slowed, rocking, men from the water clinging to the oars. The other two galleys were similarly impeded. “Bring them aboard!” called Cabot. “Put them at an oar.”
“Flee, Commander!” wept a man, drawn aboard. “To the ship!”
“We are going in,” said Cabot.
“There are too many!” said the man. “It is hopeless! All will die.”
“We are going in,” said Cabot.
There was a cheer from small boats about us.
“Get to the ship, and then go back!” said Cabot.
There was another cheer.
Men clinging to oars came aboard, and took their places on the benches.
The galley’s bow swung toward the beach, and Cabot, from the helm, called the stroke, and, water running from the lifted and dipping oar blades, the galley crested the night waters, and sped, like a gull, toward the torches and confusion on the beach. “Stroke!” called Cabot, “stroke!”
The fellow who had haplessly wept was now beside me at the oar, steady, and strong.
As we made our way through the small boats, most moving toward the ship, we began to hear the cries on the beach, the clash of metal.
It was now clear that quarterless war, red with blood, reigned upon the beach. Some hundreds of our men, in lines, were being forced back, away from the high beach, and the defile, toward the water. Glaives prodded them and struck at them. Swords flashed in the torches. Many, we had later learned, had perished in the defile, from concealed arrow fire, but arrows, now, save at short range, a yard or two, given the proximity of the combatants and the confusion, could scarcely find congenial targets. The arrow, ignorant of its purpose, might with equanimity bestow indiscriminate death.
Several yards from the torchlit, screaming, raucous shore, the clash of metal, the cries of enraged men, of frightened men, of dying men, Cabot turned the galley. “Back oars!” he commanded, and the stern of the galley, backing, pushed its way through small boats and wading men, and, a moment later, he cried “Hold!” and we lifted the oars, and we felt the keel of the galley grate on sloping, submerged sand, at the foot of the shore. We were some dozen or so feet from the beach. Dozens of terrified men rushed about us, wading in the water, seizing oars, trying to climb aboard. Shortly thereafter the galleys of Pertinax and Turgus, turned as well, lay to, at the shore, and were similarly subjected to clambering men. I saw several of the small boats returning to the shore from the ship. They had come back for their fellows. My heart was gladdened.
“Callias!” called Cabot to me, and I rose at the bench, amongst the swarming men.
“Commander?” I called.
“Prepare to command,” he said. “I am going ashore.”
“With commander’s permission,” I said, “I, too, am going ashore.”
“Stay aboard,” he said.
“I am coming with you,” I said.
“You understand the danger?”
“Certainly,” I said.
“I do not expect to return to the ship,” he said.
“Neither then, commander,” I said, “will I.”
“You are indeed a fool,” he said. He then called to Philoctetes. “Take the galley back to the ship. Return. Save whom you can!”
“Yes, commander,” said Philoctetes.
“Let tarnsmen, armed, who dare, return with you,” said Cabot.
“Yes, commander,” called Philoctetes. There were now three or four men at a bench, which should hold two, and the galley was crowded amidships, and fore and aft. Then Cabot, I following him, leaped into the water amongst men trying to board the galley, and, water to our waist, we waded to shore. Once on the beach he paused only to issue similar instructions to Pertinax and Turgus.
“I am coming with you!” cried Pertinax.
“No, you are not,” warned Cabot, with an unexpected ferocity that brooked no demur.
“Oars,” called Pertinax, taken aback, his voice cracking with misery, “Stroke!”
The galley now captained by Philoctetes had already moved from shore, outside the light of the torches. I watched the galley of Pertinax, now crowded, low in the water, pulling away, toward the ship, dark in the distance. Small boats were about it, some coming, some going. In some of the small boats there were lanterns. A number of men were about, some back of us, in the water.
“Your friend wished to accompany you,” I said. “Might his sword not have been of value?”
“He is a high officer,” said Cabot. “He is not to be risked.”
“Surely you are higher than he,” I said.
“But I command,” said Cabot.
“You would not risk him,” I said. “You fear you will not return to the ship.”
“Much depends on the tarn cavalry,” he said.
“It may not be flighted,” I said.
“It will not be,” he said.
“I do not understand,” I said.
“I have a plan,” he said.
“Seek safety,” I said.
“I will not abandon the men ashore,” he said.
“Nor will I,” I said.
He looked about himself, in the din, fatigued, frightened men, many wounded, moving past us, toward the water, the hope of a boat. He shook his head.
“It is worse than I feared,” he said.
There were many torches high in the defile, above the beach. I sensed many men were there. He put his hands on my shoulders. “Good Callias,” he said, “hurry to the galley of Turgus. There is time, a little. Board the galley, or a small boat, return to the ship.”
“No,” I said, “I am with you.”
“I did not know the men of Cos had such courage,” he said.
“Nor I those of Port Kar,” I said.
“You are fearsome enemies,” he grinned.
“And loyal friends,” I said.
A man, bleeding, ran past us, toward the water, toward a small boat. Much was confusion. We were jostled in the press. Torches threw strange lights and shadows on the sand. Shouts, and the clash of weapons, seemed closer. I gathered our men were being forced toward the water. I turned about, and saw the galley of Turgus, oars striking the water, drawing away. I heard a weird cry behind us, in the water. In the light of a lantern, held by a fellow on a small boat, I saw a fellow’s arm disappear beneath the water. I saw the lantern’s light flash on a twisting fin, and then another. The tumult, the confusion, the striking of oars, the splashing of men in the water, had doubtless attracted the attention of marine predators, presumably sharks. The attack I had witnessed had taken place in less than three feet of water. The great ship lay some half pasang from shore, in the darkness. Some, of those who could swim, may have reached her. When I had been on the ship, I had, however, noted none who had reached her ropes and ladders from the water. In the distance up the beach, toward the defile, I heard a drum. It was not ours. Given the irregularity of the beat, I took it that its role was tactical, signaling orders. If this were so, the enemy, I thought, must be professional, disciplined, trained. One was not dealing with the disorderly frontal rushings of barbarians or savages, counting on the simple avalanche of numbers. Cabot, his blade now drawn, moved toward the front, while men continued to stream past him, toward the water. I saw his blade move quickly, and a fellow, mixed in with others, clad in black, the uniform of the night, staggered back, was buffeted, fell, and was trampled. Some fifty Pani from the great ship had preceded our hundreds of mariners and armsmen ashore. There were, facing the enemy, some seven or eight lines of our men, strung across an arc of the beach, some seventy yards in width, defending frontally and on the flanks. Behind this wall of steel, its interwoven columns
