“We seek an accord, a truce,” Melqart called back, ignoring the insults.
“And you will get shit!” Ahinadab shouted. The crew laughed and catcalled at that. A few boys repeated the captain’s words in mock baritone to the amusement of others.
“We pray to the same gods. We sail the same waters. We live beneath the same sun. Our ship is done, its keel broken. Will you not show us mercy?”
“And were it I up to my balls in water and you standing on a firm deck? Would the names of the gods in my prayers matter then?”
The man standing in the boat said nothing in reply. “As I thought,” Ahinadab said. “Ba’al rot you and fuck you, man of Carthage. I will show you no mercy. I will show you only my ass as I depart.”
The crew of the Lion stamped the deck in merriment and called after the barque as the tillerman reversed course and it made its way back to its stranded ship.
The tide began to fill the inlet as evening fell. The water lifted the bireme and gave it steerage way about the rocks. The rowing boss called a slow cadence like a dirge. The oars dipped and rose almost leisurely and picked up only when the incoming current built to make a bow wave around the naked prow. The Lion made its way past the scorched wreck of the hawk-prowed ship and into the channel. To their stern, shadows crept up the eastern wall of the crater to cover the wolf’s head trireme as though with a funeral shroud.
51
The Gods Smile, the Gods Laugh
The Lion fought the current around the turn in the channel, making the angle far more slowly and much more cautiously than before. In the twilight, the nature of the turn was visible. Dwayne was glad he couldn’t see a thing when they’d entered the bend ahead of the chasing vessels. The clearances were razor-thin to either side. He heard the blades of the oars scrape rock more than once.
Dwayne judged the angle of the curve at close to ninety degrees with the channel narrowing on approach. His new appreciation of Ahinadab’s sailing skills rose a few notches. It was nothing short of a miracle that they made it through this twisting notch at the speed they were moving and in near total darkness the night before.
The channel broadened beyond the turn to the wider portion he recalled from the first passage. The current weakened here, and their progress picked up.
Dwayne turned to look up at a shout from above. That same boy sat hugging the mast from a precarious perch on cleats near the top. Had he been there as they made that turn? Dwayne hadn’t thought to look up. The boy was calling and pointing to the shoreline off to starboard. Dwayne strained his eyes but could see nothing. Others in the crew joined him at the freeboard. A few shouted excitedly and gestured ashore.
Ahinadab shouted to the helm. Yada responded by changing their course to bring them closer into the shore. The oars were drawn inboard. Naked swimmers plunged into the water and swam for the beach. Two of the men looped ends of lines around their waists and knotted them fast before jumping into the foam. Others on board played out the ropes which were secured to the anchor hawsers fore and aft.
Dwayne’s curiosity got the best of him. He jumped in, to swim after them. His muscles ached, but the water felt good on his skin even though the salt caused his wounds to sting. He followed the splashes of the others at an angle across the current toward the unseen shore.
He staggered from the water to find the others had all beaten him to the sandy beach at the base of the rock wall. The two men who swam with ropes were directing others to draw them taut and wrap the ends around jagged spires of rock that jutted from the gentle breakers like fangs. The Lion’s anchors were gone, victims of the chase. These lines and the work of Yada at the rudder would serve to hold the bireme steady in the middle of the current.
The lines fast, the swimmers made their way along the beach with Dwayne following. Lying on the white sand was a large humped shape visible in the gloom. It was a sail folded and weighted down with rocks to cover over, like a tarp, a heap of something. Dwayne helped shove the rocks away and joined the men heaving the heavy sailcloth aside.
Beneath the cover lay baskets and amphora and sacks and jars. It was stowage dropped here by the Carthaginians the night before to lighten their ships for the shallow passage into the narrow channel. They anticipated returning this way to retrieve their goods.
The men of the Lion let out a whoop. Here was wine, beer, oil, dried fruit, dried fish, nuts, and grain for bread. There were bolts of cloth, coils of rope, cups, and bowls of brass and lengths of timber. Partly buried in the sand were two long spars banded with bronze and fitted with runnels for sail lines. The sailors were dreading a long, hungry passage with no wind to power them or water to slake their thirst. This trove of edibles and gear changed that equation for them. Some dropped to their knees to shout praise to Ba’al and any other god they could think of. Others knocked the top from an amphora and held it up to spill sweet wine in their mouths.
A crewman cupped his hands and called to the bireme bobbing atop the swells in the dying light. An answering call was unmistakably Ahinadab’s bellow. The men made their way back to where they secured the lines to the rock spires. Dwayne stood in the rolling surf and listened to the sounds of hammering coming from the Lion. The others sat on the sand and shared a basket of sand
