I cheated my helm to the west again.
We were five stades from the channel’s turn to the west.
Doola appeared in the helmsman’s station. Alexandros was beside him, in armour. ‘Let me have the helm while you get into your kit,’ the young man said.
Seckla had my armour. So I handed Alexandros the steering oar, and Seckla buckled the straps of my thorax under my left arm.
We had passed all of our own ships. They lay right against the coast — I thought Demetrios was insane, but I had problems of my own. The Phoenicians, naturally enough, were throwing everything at me. I was, after all, the pirate rowing along in one of their ships.
Doola stepped up on the bench, leaned out over the curving strakes of the stern and loosed.
I couldn’t even see where he was shooting.
‘Duck your head,’ Seckla said.
I did, and unseen hands put my helmet over my head.
I stood up, and Behon put my aspis on my arm.
Doola loosed again. And again. And again.
In a stern chase, the pursued has one advantage — the running ship has all the timbers of the stern, which rise like a temple roof above the helm. It is like a shield for the running ship. The pursuer’s bow is lower, and open, so that arrows from the running ship can pass the length of the pursuer, hitting oarsmen, or anyone.
Three of Doola’s archers stepped up and began to loose arrows with him, taking turns on the port-side bench. It was difficult shooting, with the wind, the angle of the bow and the motion of the sea.
On the other hand, they must have loosed an arrow every three beats of a man’s heart.
A few were coming aboard us.
I was armed, and I left the oars and ran forward along the mainmast to the place amidships from which I sometimes commanded. Men were grim-faced with exertion. Full speed — ramming speed — can only be held for so long. A man can row flat out for about as long as a man can sprint at full speed.
We’d already done that.
Alexandros yawed — a moment’s inattention, and we turned slightly to starboard, and there they were, a spear’s-throw aft, their beak reaching for our stern.
‘Everything you have! Be free men! Nothing at stake here but our freedom!’ I called. ‘ Pull! ’
The next six strokes were better.
But the Phoenician had matched our turn, and now I couldn’t see a thing.
Aft, Doola stepped up onto the stern bench and loosed. Some flicker crossed his face — a smile? — even as he jumped down and one of our Greeks stepped up on the bench and loosed.
And then, there they were. The trireme appeared from behind us like a sea monster broaching the waves. But this sea monster appeared because it was wounded — it had turned too hard, or a chance arrow had slain an oarsman, causing the man’s corpse to let go his oar and foul his mates, so that his ship turned suddenly on the drag.
In a flash, we were ten ship-lengths ahead, and the enemy ship had lost all his way and was headed due west, into the stony beach. She was turning and turning, and the port-side oars were in chaos.
She struck bow-first. I doubt that the beach did a bronze obol of damage, but oars were splintered, and when men take a heavy oar in the teeth, things break.
‘Cruising speed!’ I called. The Alban boy looked at me with wide, frightened eyes. I made myself smile.
‘Slow them down, boy.’
He tapped his stick more slowly. He had a wonderful sense of tempo.
Men on either side of me all but collapsed on their oars.
I leaped onto the unstepped mainmast and ran along it aft. I stepped up on the starboard-side helmsman’s bench, where the archers weren’t — shooting on that side would cramp their bow arms — and looked aft.
The second Phoenician was making up the ground lost by the first. She came on with beautiful symmetry, the three banks of oars flashing in the blue and gold sunlight like a fantastic dragonfly skimming the waves.
He was three stades back.
I leaned forward.
We were three stades from the turn in the channel. Already, the wave action was heavier on the bow.
‘Deck crew — ready with the boatsail.’ I gave my aspis to Seckla. ‘Steering oars,’ I said to Alexandros. ‘Well done.’
He nodded, a serious young man. ‘Steering oars, aye,’ he said. I got my hands on them, he ducked out and I was between them.
The second Phoenician elected to wait for the third. Their tactic showed immediately, as the lead ship yawed to the east a few horse-lengths, obviously intending to range alongside my starboard side. The trailing Phoenician would go for my port side.
But when the leader elected to wait for the next ship in line, the initiative passed to me.
‘Cables to the masthead,’ I said, but Seckla already had them laid.
A good crew is the only advantage worth having.
Even as I watched, the cables went over the crown of the mast and were made fast. Four men began to haul them tight — tighter and tighter, and then they were belayed forward, and the job was done.
We were less than a stade from the turn in the channel.
I was watching the Phoenician coming up our port side, wondering when his rowers would flag, and she was just passing the one that had run aground. And Lydia, forgotten, came up on the Phoenician from close to the beach and rammed her.
Vasileos, bless him.
The sound of his ram going home carried over the water. The little triakonter wouldn’t ordinarily have done much to a trireme, but a trireme anchored by having its bow buried in the shale of the beach was a very static target, and her beak opened the timbers.
Lydia had changed the engagement in a single action. Now she was backing oars, and Nike swept past her, under her stern, and as they passed the stranded trireme, they threw fire into her stern.
The trailing Phoenicians now put their bows to the troublesome small craft and went to ramming speed.
I couldn’t see Amphitrite anywhere. My first, heart-stopping worry was that she’d been rammed and sunk while I was looking elsewhere, but after a few glances — I was steering as small as I could — I couldn’t find a ship in the geometry of sea combat that might have taken her.
I looked over my right shoulder, and there she was — she’d tacked, and was now hard against the coast of Gaul.
And, of course, the Phoenicians had to assume that Demetrios was just a local coaster running for sea room.
Doola was still loosing arrows at a magnificent rate, and his apprentice bowmen were hard at it. The newest of them had stopped shooting and was now simply handing arrows to the others. But as the two Phoenicians overhauled us, we started to take hits.
Seckla took the first arrow.
He fell, face down, and screamed. Alexandros stood over him, holding his aspis to cover.
‘Prepare to turn to port!’ I roared in my best deep-blue voice. ‘At my word, port oars back water!’
I watched the horizon, glanced at the trailing Phoenician. It was going to be close. If we lost too much speed, we’d be rammed.
Doola and his archers all put a shaft on their bows and waited. Just for a moment, we would lie across the bows of the trailing ship — at less than a stade.
‘ Now!’ I cried.
The port-side oarsmen backed water, laying on their oars for two strokes.
The ship pivoted on the stern.
The port-side Phoenician seemed to shoot at us like an arrow from a bow.
‘Ramming speed!’ I shouted. I think I screamed it.
Seckla rolled over and said something to Alexandros, who called out — and the deck crew dropped the boatsail off its yard. The breeze filled it instantly, and the ship leaped ahead.
