overwhelmed as mocked.
It was, if I may say so, one of my better plans. No one was injured, and in a single burst of enthusiasm we retook all of our ships, all of our weapons and all of our goods. The ship-handlers were sent over the side.
It was, I confess, my intention to gloat. But that didn’t happen, because as I settled between the steering oars to turn the bow, Doola gave a great shout. He’d shimmied up the boatsail mast to check the sail, which had been left furled for two days in the rain.
He dropped to the deck by sliding down the forestay and ran along the catwalk.
‘Six triremes!’ he shouted.
There was only one reason there would be six triremes in the offing.
There was a wind blowing off the land — the mainland across the straight. A westerly.
‘Hull up or down?’ I asked.
‘Hull up.’ That meant that with low ships like triremes, they couldn’t be more than twelve to fifteen stades away.
‘Cut the cable,’ I ordered. Seckla, shining with water, used an axe — the forward-anchor cable parted in one blow, and the ship was alive.
Half my rowers were frolicking in the surf on the edge of the beach, and I needed them.
‘We beach stern-first. Touch and go.’ With half our complement of oarsmen, this was going to be a complicated tangle. But Doola and Vasileos were up to it. In moments we were around, helped by the current.
‘Steady up!’ Doola roared amidships. ‘Back oars!’
I felt the steering oars bite, and then I felt the stern touch under me, and in moments the oarsmen were pouring in. To my left, Vasileos had the Lydia in the surf. To my right, the Nike took in her rowers.
How I wished we had a signalling system; anything. But we didn’t, so I lay with my stern on the beach for long heartbeats with my rowers switching places — the swimmers hadn’t always taken the right benches, of course — while the Phoenicians became visible to the south.
Demetrios got the mainsail up on the Amphitrite with the anchor still down. Her head came up, and he pointed the craft due north — it looked as if he’d run aground on the north harbour entrance. Then he plucked up his anchor stone and shot away.
Lydia couldn’t lie close enough to the wind to use the west wind to run north. She rowed off the beach. Nike followed at her heels, almost falling afoul of her, and I watched with my heart in my mouth and my stomach doing backflips.
Someone was screaming my name.
It was Detorix.
My rowers were almost ready. Lydia had thirty rowers, and I had one hundred and eighty. A hundred and eighty men take a certain time to get themselves organized.
I stepped out from between the oars. ‘Carthage!’ I shouted. ‘Phoenicians! Six galleys!’
That shut him up.
‘I’ll lead them away!’ I shouted. ‘They want me!’
Detorix looked as if he might want me, too, but at that moment, Doola ordered his rowers to give way.
I was back between my steering oars in a flash.
In two more heartbeats, I had that feeling — one of the finest, in a crisis — that the ship was a living thing.
I gave Doola the nod I always gave him that meant we had steerage way. The stern was off the beach in fine style.
In ten strokes, we were catching up on Nike hand over fist. A hundred and eighty men can row a great deal faster than thirty men.
All was not well, though. The trireme was not at her fastest, because she was meant to be beached and dried after every day at sea, and her timbers were heavy with water.
I consoled myself that the Phoenicians were in damp hulls, too. They had to be, to have made the Venetiae Isles in twenty days from Gades. That was my guess — still is.
We raced for the harbour mouth. The lead Phoenician trireme was six stades away or closer. Even as I watched, Amphitrite shaved the northernmost rocks. Demetrios sailed between the outermost big rock and the headland, trusting that a fully laden merchantman was still shallower than the water.
He was a great sailor.
He made it with about an arm’s-length to spare and he was running close-hauled, his mainsail brailed and heaved right round, using the west wind to urge him up the channel.
Lydia followed him under oars, also cutting inboard of the big rock, white with gull droppings.
Nike shaved the headland, and lost the stroke for a heartstopping moment when Gaius misjudged the turn and his port-side oars brushed the gravel. But he had enough way on to make the turn, and then his men were rowing for their lives.
I didn’t think I could shoot the gap. I steered outboard of the rock. By this time, the Euphoria was almost up to cruising speed, and we shot out of the harbour entrance even as my marines armed and my archers wiped down their bows and shook their heads over bowstrings left exposed for two days and nights.
Even as we ran out of the harbour, we were passing the Nike. That’s how fast a trireme can be.
Behind us, we could hear the drum on the lead Phoenician. He was moving to ramming speed.
It was going to be close.
Doola was serving out bowstrings. He — steady, sensible fellow that he was — had his strings in a pouch at his waist. All the time. Even ashore, even mourning for his lost love.
Bless him.
I used our relatively slow speed to advantage, making a sharp turn to starboard — head up into the wind, almost across the lead Phoenician’s course, making him turn. A trireme at ramming speed has some very limited options for turning.
I caught Doola’s eye. He was stringing his fine Egyptian horn bow, his eyes all but bulging with the effort. But he nodded.
‘Full speed!’ he called. One of the Alban boys started to beat the new tempo against the butt of the mainmast with a stick.
Now, we were in a waterlogged hull — a Phoenician galley is a heavy trireme to start with, heavier lumber, a much heavier bow. Of course, I now knew why: they built them for the Outer Sea. But they weren’t as sleek or as fast as Athenian triremes on their best day.
Add cargo.
Add too many marines.
Add our mainmast, sail furled, lying down the central catwalk. Ships planning to fight leave the mast ashore.
We were heavy, and slow.
Luckily, our opponents were in the same shape. Plus their rowers had been rowing since dawn, I’ll guess. Almost head on into the wind.
It was a curious sort of race — tortoise versus tortoise.
Ahead of us, we could see the coast of Gaul — the mainland. The channel — the strait, if you like — would turn west in about six stades. I had a plan for that, too.
The Phoenician fetched my wake and turned — very slightly. I could see his archers going forward into the bow. The bow went down, and cost him some speed.
The first flurries of arrows fell well short and were blown off to the west.
But we were almost in bowshot. A stade or two.
I cheated the helm to port.
It wasn’t enough, but it was something.
The Alban boy smacked his stick faster on the mainmast.
We began to pick up speed.
In the time it takes to tell this, the Phoenician closed from three stades to two, and then the rate of her catching us slowed. Behind her, the other five triremes trailed back — two were right up close, and the other three were well back, almost a dozen stades.
