'Stroke!' called the oar master.
'Hold! Back oars!' cried the oar master, miserably. 'Steady!' he called to the two helmsmen, now at a single tiller.
In the distance involved, at full strike, with the lost port rudder, we could not have come about in time to attain the attack course.
'Now, stroke!' called the oar master.
'Hold!' called the officer, miserably.
'Hold, hold!' cried the oar master.
In the delay a ship of the Voskjard had interposed herself between us and the _Portia_, Our rams, separated by some fifty yards, faced one another. We backed slowly away. No longer was the _Tina_ alert to her helms. Even low and shallow drafted she could no longer veer in a matter of yards. She had been designed for a double-helm system. The port rudder was now gone. Additional open water was now required in which she might maneuver. The ship of the Voskjard lay to. She did not attack. It may be that from her position she could not detect the missing port rudder. Or it might be that she was waiting for support.
'Shall we not attack?' asked a man.
'That will do little to aid the _Portia_,' said another man.
The _Tina_ lying to, several of us stood upon our benches, that we might observe the _Portia_'s fate.
'Can we not yet press to her aid?' asked a man.
'If we did so,' said another man, glumly, pointing to the rocking galley of the Voskjard off our bow, 'she would take us in the hull like a speared tarsk.'
'The _Portia_ is done for,' said a man.
'Gone,' said another.
Grimly we watched the efficient approach of the Voskjard's ships, one to the port of the _Portia_, the other to her starboard. On the deck of the _Portia_ there seemed no more than fifteen or twenty figures.
'What are they doing?' asked a man.
'I do not know,' I said.
Men on the masts of the _Portia_ were unslinging the ropes which held the tops of the long, heavy planked constructions back against the masts. These constructions were mounted on platforms. When freed of the masts they leaned back against the platforms. Other men were busying themselves at the foot of the masts, where they were lengthening and playing out the chains that attached the platforms to the masts. When they had done this other men, with shoulders and levers, and hauling on ropes, moved the platforms, which were on long, solid rollers, with their planked constructions, away from the masts, one to port, the other to starboard. At this point the fellows who had been handling the chains adjusted them to the appropriate lengths. Still by these chains, of course, the platforms with their planked constructions, were held to the ship's masts. I saw the rollers then locked in position.
Pirates crowded to the rails of their ships. I saw grappling irons, on their lines, hurled over the bulwarks of the _Portia_.
But almost at the same time the planked constructions, on their platforms, were pulled downward by ropes. These constructions, some twenty-five feet in length, and some seven feet in width, as the pirates scattered back in their path, crashed downward, their great bent spikes shattering into the decking of the pirate ships, anchoring the ships together, yet holding them some seven or eight feet apart.
At the same time battle horns of Ar sounded from the galley and hatches were thrown open.
The pirates, startled, unable to reach the ship, stood confused along their railings.
'Infantrymen of Ar!' cried a man on the _Tina_.
Out of the opened hatches poured warriors of Ar, grimly helmeted, bearing great, rounded shields and mighty spears, bronze-headed and tapering.
Pirates rushed to the planked road bearing ingress to their ship, but a dozen spears, and then another dozen, hurled by running men devastated resistance, and then, on the run, swords drawn, their shields struck by arrows, buffeting, slashing, driving men into the water, the soldiers of Ar rushed over the bridges linking the ships. Half turned toward the stem of the vessel and half to the stern. The pirates' lines, thin, strung out for boarding, were instantly cut. Vicious and swift, clean, exact, merciless, was the steel of professional warriors. In moments had the decks of both pirate vessels been cleared. And still soldiers emerged from the hold. In all, I had little doubt that they outnumbered the pirates eleven or twelve to one. The spacious hold of the _Portia_ had been crammed with men.
'It was an infantry battle,' said a man beside me, in awe.
'But it was fought at sea,' said another.
We watched the great planked constructions being pried up from the decks of the pirate ships. We saw flags of Ar's Station being run out upon their stem-castle lines.
'Ar knows what she does best,' said a man.
'Yes,' said another.
The ship of the Voskjard which had been lying to, preventing us from joining the fray, now backed away from us.
I think all of us, both friend and foe, had from that moment on a new respect for the ships of Ar's Station.
'Let us join our sisters!' called Callimachus.
We then made our way toward the _Portia_ and her prizes.
'It will be dark soon,' said a man.
'We can slip away under the cover of darkness,' said a man.
'Callimachus will not abandon Callisthenes,' I said.
'Where is Callisthenes?' asked a man.
'I do not know,' I said.
'Surely we cannot last another day,' said a man.
'Not without the support of Callisthenes,' said another fellow.
'It would be the third day of fighting,' said a man.
'Callisthenes will be here before morning,' said a man.
'How do you know?' asked a fellow.
'He must,' shrugged the fellow.
'We must rig a new port rudder,' I said. 'We can obtain materials from the wreckage.'
'I will help,' said a man.
'I, too,' said another.
The thought of the _Tamira_ crossed my mind. I had been within a hundred yards of her today.
'We shall seek permission to put down the longboat,' said one of my fellows.
'Do so,' I said.
The thought, too, of the _Tuka_, crossed my mind. She had been the lead ship of the Voskjard's fast wedge attack. She now lay damaged, unmanned, stranded on a bar near the chain, not more than a pasang away. It was said that she was a well-known ship of the Voskjard. Too, she was a heavy class galley, with a large hold. 'What are you thinking of?' asked a man. 'Nothing,' I said 'Nothing.'
Chapter 6 — WE AWAIT SUPPORT FROM CALLISTHENES; IT DOES NOT COME; THE THIRD FLEET OF THE VOSKJARD; AGAIN WE SOUND OUR BATTLE HORNS
We saw the _Leda_ of Port Cos taken full in the hull.
'Back oars!' cried the oar master.
The _Tina_ shook in the water and, swerving, slid back. A medium-class galley of the Voskjard slipped past our bow, the tooth of her ram failing to feed, the water from her cleft passage, swelling away from her, forcing us to port. I saw one of her great eyes, that on her starboard bow, slide balefully by. Our own ram, as she passed, gouged a furrow, the length of a spear, the wet wood squeaking, in her flank. A man screamed on the stern of the
