channel.
The Ares swung neatly through the turn in the dogleg and Calix called for attack speed, turning briefly to nod at the helmsman in silent commendation for a perfect approach. The quadrireme moved quickly over the surface of the water and the crew worked with silent efficiency as they readied the ship for the run across the lagoon, securing the mainsail, its broad canvas too easy a target for a fire arrow; while below the rowers shouted encouragement to each other over the sound of their own singing.
The Ares tore out of the channel at twelve knots, Calix standing firmly beside the helmsman, his eyes darting from the approaching Roman galleys to seemingly random points on the inner shoals a mile away. The helmsman began a series of evasive manoeuvres in an effort to keep the Romans guessing; but, before they had covered two hundred yards, Calix had made his decision.
‘The centre channel,’ he ordered, and the helmsman confirmed the course, shifting his rudder a half-point, already looking to the landmarks that would allow him to make the final adjustments as he neared the shoals.
Calix watched the Roman galleys turn as they realized they could not cut him off, their bows slowly coming about to a convergent point a half-mile ahead of the Ares. The nearest galley was less than one hundred and fifty yards off his starboard forequarter and Calix recognized it as the quinquereme Hamilcar had identified, the Greek prefect’s boat. The beginnings of a smile creased his mouth as he relished the chase to come, but it quickly evaporated as he noticed an anomaly: the slender shaft of an additional mast, hidden until now by distance and the sailing skills of an unseen opponent. He was about to shout out a warning to his crew when the Roman galley shot out from hiding. It was a trireme, a small, sleek ship, and it sped neatly from beneath the shadow of the quinquereme.
Calix lost vital seconds as he stared at the trireme, completely thrown by its sudden appearance. It was a smaller, slower boat than the Ares, and should logically be no threat, but the Romans had obviously devised some plan with the trireme as its crux. His helmsman shouted for further orders, apprehension in his voice.
Calix spun around. ‘Two points to port,’ he ordered. ‘Keep us out of range of that trireme.’
The helmsman nodded and the Ares leaned into the turn. Calix looked to the approaching Roman ships again, his confidence shaken. He tried again to understand the Romans’ plan when a realization struck him. The trireme had been hiding behind the prefect’s quinquereme. He was the master of this plan, and Calix looked to the trireme again, suspecting that Perennis was the commander.
His fists clenched instinctively, the realization steeling his nerves once more. His contract with the Carthaginians made the Romans the enemy, but now two sons of Greece would lead the fray for each side, and Calix knew his every skill would be tested.
The drum hammered out the rhythm of attack speed, but to Atticus the Virtus seemed to move at a faster pace, its nimble hull turning neatly at every touch of Gaius’s hand on the tiller. The Orcus was swinging around behind him, its turn wider and slower, but its attack speed was a knot faster and it shadowed the Virtus, bearing down upon her.
The Rhodian was less than one hundred yards away off the port forequarter of the Virtus, aiming to sweep past the bow of the Copia, which was approaching rapidly on its port side. It would be a tight run but Atticus could see the Rhodian had chosen his angle perfectly, allowing himself sufficient sea room to adjust his course and still break through.
‘Signal the Fulgora and Honos,’ Atticus ordered, referring to the two quinqueremes on the outer extremes of the chase. ‘Tell them to break off and block the channel the Rhodian just used.’
The quinqueremes broke away in succession, leaving only three Roman galleys in the chase.
The Rhodian’s galley passed the Copia, her course changing slightly again as she lined up for an invisible channel in the inner shoals. Gaius brought the Virtus into her wake but the trireme was already falling behind the larger, faster galley, the gap increasing beyond a hundred yards. Atticus waited patiently, the Copia sweeping past his left flank to continue the chase, while over his right shoulder he could hear the drum beat of the Orcus from inside its hull at it too began to overtake the Virtus, the spearhead formation of the three Roman galleys becoming inverted as the trireme tip was overtaken.
Every galley was moving at attack speed, looking to conserve their energy, waiting for the right moment to commit to a ramming-speed attack run or, in the Rhodian’s case, an escape run, each captain knowing that the strength of their rowing crew was finite and there was no room for error in the enclosed lagoon. Atticus knew from their previous encounter that the Rhodian believed he had the advantage of both speed and manoeuvrability over the quinqueremes, but the Virtus had brought one other factor into play, one where Atticus alone had the advantage: stamina.
‘Ramming speed,’ he shouted, and the Virtus surged forward, her ram rearing out of the waters at the first pull of the oars at thirteen knots.
She quickly began to retake the lead from the quinqueremes, re-establishing the spearhead until she was sailing neatly in the wake of the Rhodian, the Orcus and Copia falling away, following orders to conserve their strength until the battle was joined.
The shoals were still half a mile away, the Rhodian less than a hundred yards ahead, and the Virtus was committed.
‘Ramming speed,’ Calix shouted, his eyes locked on the approaching trireme. ‘Archers to the aft-deck.’
He spun around and looked to the shoals ahead. The deck of the Ares shifted beneath him, a minor course adjustment as the helmsman brought the bow of the quadrireme to bear on the mouth of the channel, still a half- mile away.
He looked to the trireme again, the gap between the boats becoming steady and then increasing as the quadrireme’s greater speed came to bear once more. The Ares would reach the channel first, but what then, Calix thought? The trireme would follow, its shallow draught allowing it access. Would it maintain a higher speed, risking all to catch the quadrireme as it slowed through the channel? Would it follow the Ares into the inner harbour? Calix could not be sure, his mind trying to place himself on the aft-deck of the Roman galley, to see as Perennis saw, to plan as he would. His conclusions all reached the same point. He must not allow the trireme to catch up and somehow cripple his ship.
‘Helmsman,’ he shouted. ‘Come about six points to port. Take us through the left channel.’
‘But Captain,’ the helmsman replied, ‘that’s over a mile away. The rowers-’
‘Do it now!’ Calix shouted, his eyes locked on the trireme. ‘There’s only one way to stop that trireme: we must bleed its rowers white.’
The Ares heeled over into the turn, the helmsman straining through the effort of turning the rudder at ramming speed. The Roman galleys matched the course change, the trireme’s sleeker lines allowing it to respond faster, and within two ship lengths the formation of the chase was re-established, although the quinqueremes, continuing at attack speed, were falling further away from the smaller lead ship.
Calix could hear the slow creak of drawn bows to his side and a flight of arrows whooshed away from the aft-deck to the pursuing trireme. He watched the arrows fall, a sporadic hail of death, but as the archers prepared to loose again, Calix suddenly became aware of a silence behind him. He turned and strode to the aft-hatch on the main deck that led to the rowers. They had been rowing at ramming speed for three minutes. Six, maybe seven minutes was their absolute maximum, and Calix glanced back over his shoulder to the trireme. Perennis was subject to the same restrictions and the gap was still increasing. Calix still held the advantage, but as he looked down to the rowers he felt the seeds of doubt taking root within him.
They were sweating stoically at their oars, their faces twisted in grotesque masks of exertion, their laboured breathing like that of a blown elephant. They were strong men, not easily given to exhaustion, but it was the lack of a customary sound that had drawn Calix’s attention — for the rowers had stopped singing.
Atticus took one last look at the stern of the quadrireme before ducking his head below deck. The rowing deck seemed in chaos, the central walkway crowded with the fallen, while fresh rowers ran to take abandoned oars in hand. They had passed the five-minute mark and still the drum hammered out eighty beats a minute, a gruelling, punishing pace that only the strongest could maintain. Atticus counted at least two dozen men near him who had not yet fallen. Rarely had he seen such determination, like indomitable legionaries in the face of an enemy charge, the rowers’ backs straight through each pull of the oars, their very freedom at stake. They laboured with a savage- like trance on their faces, betraying the deep-seated hatred for the very task into which they poured every ounce of their strength.
Another man fell, then another, and another, their cries pitiful in the hollowed-out carapace of the trireme,
