Kitabı oku: «Ship of Rome»

CHAPTER ONE

For an instant the low sun shone through the surrounding fog to illuminate the lone figure on the foredeck of the Aquila. Atticus had been motionless but the momentary shot of sunlight caused him to quickly lower his head and close his eyes tightly against the light. He raised his hand instinctively and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, trying to wipe away the tiredness he could feel in every part of his body. Slowly raising his head, he spied the winter sun, estimating it to be no more than an hour above the horizon, its weakened rays only now beginning to burn off the sea mist which had rolled in so ponderously the evening before, and so the Roman galley continued to be enveloped in the all-consuming embrace of the fog.

The Aquila, the Eagle, was a trireme, a galley with three rows of oars manned by two hundred chain-bound slaves. She was of the new cataphract style, with an enclosed upper deck that protected the rowers beneath and improved the ship’s performance in heavy weather. As a galley she was a breed apart, the pinnacle of Roman naval technology and a fearsome weapon.

As the onshore wind freshened, blowing a cooling mist into his face, Atticus opened his mouth slightly to heighten his sense of smell. The oncoming wind and his position at the front of the trireme allowed him to filter out his surroundings, the salt-laden air, the smouldering charcoal braziers and the stench emanating from the slave decks below. The breeze would help conceal the Aquila, robbing any approaching ship of the opportunity of picking up the all-too-familiar smells of a Roman galley.

With his vision impaired by fog and, before that, darkness, Atticus had planned on detecting his prey by sound, specifically by the rhythmic beat of the drum marking the oar-strokes of the enemy bireme’s two rows of galley slaves. He knew from reports that the galley they were hunting would be travelling close to the shore, passing the inlet that hid the Aquila from the main channel. The fog afforded the Roman galley extended cover now that the sun had risen, but it was fickle and Atticus knew he could not rely on it as he had on the darkness of the pre-dawn.

Hobnails reverberating on the timber decking indicated a legionary’s approach, and Atticus turned to watch the soldier emerge from the fog behind him. He was a hastatus, a junior soldier, recently recruited and untested in battle. He stood tall with broad shoulders, his upper arms disproportionately developed from long hours training with a gladius, the short sword of the Roman infantry. He wore full battledress and, although his face was expressionless beneath the iron helmet, Atticus sensed the man’s confidence.

The legionary stopped four feet short of Atticus and stood to attention, raising his right fist and slamming it into his chest, a salute to the captain of the ship standing before him. The sound of the soldier’s fist against chain mail sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet of the morning. The silence was shattered, a silence needed to ensure the Aquila remained undetected. As the legionary drew himself to his full height in anticipation of addressing a senior officer, Atticus reacted.

‘Beg to report, Captain,’ the legionary declared in a strident voice. As per regulation, he was looking straight ahead, but his eyes dropped quickly as the captain suddenly lunged at him, his expression murderous. The soldier tried to react but the movement was too quick and he felt the captain’s hand close over his mouth.

‘Keep your voice down, you whoreson,’ Atticus hissed. ‘Are you looking to have us all killed?’

The legionary’s eyes widened in surprise and alarm as both his hands wrapped themselves around the captain’s wrist in an attempt to ease the pressure over his mouth. Panic flared as he realized that the grip was vicelike, the muscles in the captain’s arm like iron, the pressure unrelenting. Atticus relaxed his hold a little and the legionary gulped air into his lungs, dread still in his eyes which moments ago had showed only confidence. Atticus removed his hand, his face expressing the warning for silence that needed no vocal manifestation.

‘I, I…’ the legionary spluttered.

‘Easy soldier,’ said Atticus, ‘breathe easy.’

As if for the first time, Atticus noticed how young the legionary was, barely eighteen at most. Septimus, the marine centurion, had twenty such hastati under his command. Fresh from the barracks, and before that a Roman family, these boys had eagerly signed on at sixteen to fulfil their duty as Roman citizens.

‘The centurion…’ the soldier began haltingly, ‘the centurion wishes to speak with you.’

‘Tell him I cannot leave the foredeck.’

The soldier nodded, as if the effort to speak was too much. He straightened up slowly.

‘Yes, Captain.’

Once again he stood to attention, though not as sharply as before. He began to salute but stopped short of hitting his chest, his eyes locked on those of Atticus.

‘I’m sorry, Captain…about before…’

‘No shame, soldier, now report to the centurion.’

The legionary did an about-face and marched off, although this time with a softer step. Atticus watched him leave and smiled to himself. Ever since Septimus had come aboard the Aquila ten months ago, he had tried to impose his will on Atticus. As captain, Atticus was responsible for the ship and its crew of sailors, while Septimus was responsible for the reduced century of sixty marine infantry stationed on board. The ranks were, to all intents and purposes, equal, and it was the responsibility of both men to maintain the status quo between the commands. Atticus turned and took up his position at the bow of the trireme. He instinctively checked the line of his ship, satisfying himself that the four rowers, two fore and two aft, were keeping the trireme midstream. He became motionless again, rock steady, refocusing all his senses on the task at hand. As suddenly as it had blown up, the onshore breeze disappeared, robbing the Aquila of that additional advantage, shifting the odds again, this time in favour of the prey.

Septimus stood tall at the front of his assembled century in the aft section of the main deck. At six foot four inches and two hundred and twenty pounds he was a formidable sight. The centurion stood with his feet slightly apart, balancing himself against the gentle rolling of the deck, his right hand resting lightly on the hilt of his gladius, his left arm encircling his helmet. His dark Italian features were accentuated by a tangle of black curly hair, giving him a permanently dishevelled look.

The centurion had been standing ready since before dawn, over two hours in full battledress. The waiting never bothered Septimus. Over his twelve-year career as a Roman infantryman, he had developed the endless patience of the professional soldier. He began his career not long after the Battle of Beneventum, when the Roman legions finally routed the army of Pyrrhus of Epirus, the Greek aggressor who had sought to subdue Rome and expand his kingdom across the Adriatic. Where before the legions would have been disbanded after a campaign, the ferocity and swiftness of Pyrrhus’s attack persuaded Rome that she needed to maintain a standing army, trained, disciplined, and ever ready. Septimus was one of this new breed, a career soldier, honed through discipline and battle, the backbone of the ever-expanding Republic.

The year before he had fought at the Battle of Agrigentum, the first pitched battle against the Carthaginians, the Punici, on the island of Sicily. As a member of the principes, the best fighting men of the legion, he had been positioned in one of the centre maniples of the second line of the three-line, triplex acies, formation. He was an optio, second-in-command to his centurion, and, after the first line of hastati had been overwhelmed by the Carthaginians, he had helped steady the line before the Romans turned the tide of battle and broke the Carthaginian front. His actions that day had come to the attention of the commander, Lucius Postumius Megellus, and he had been rewarded with promotion to the rank of centurion.

‘Alone, of course,’ he thought to himself with a smile, as he watched the legionary return from the foredeck of the trireme through the dissipating fog. He had known that Atticus would not come to him. Before being assigned to the Aquila, Septimus had had no respect for sailors. His first experience at sea had been only four years earlier, when the Roman task force of four legions, some forty thousand men, were ferried in barges across the Strait of Messina to Sicily to counter the Carthaginian threat to that island. It was the first time the Roman legions had deployed off the mainland, but the sea trip had only been one link in a chain that saw the legions travel from their respective camps around Rome to the battlefields of Sicily. In his eyes, the sailors had been no different from the myriad of support people who serviced the fighting men of the legions, and their ships were unwieldy, uncomfortable hulks.

The Aquila, however, was a different breed of ship. Powered by both sail and the strength of two hundred slaves, she was capable of incredible speed and manoeuvrability, a stallion in comparison to the pack mules that were the transport barges he had first encountered. Atticus was the perfect foil for the Aquila. Completely at home on the deck of his ship, he had an innate ability to get the best out of both his crew and his ship. Septimus’s respect for sailors was born out of his respect for Atticus. On the two previous occasions the Aquila had gone into action since Septimus had been assigned to her, the captain had proved himself to be the equal of any centurion.

Septimus noticed that the legionary was treading softly on the timber deck, and when he saluted it was not with the usual vigour.

‘Well, soldier, where is he?’ Septimus asked with underlying menace.

The legionary hesitated. ‘The captain said he can’t leave the foredeck.’

In the silence that followed, the soldier waited for the rebuke that was sure to follow, bracing himself. Septimus noticed his expression and smiled inwardly.

‘Very well,’ the centurion said tersely, ‘get back to your position.’

The legionary saluted again and with relief retook his position in the ranks.

‘Quintus,’ Septimus called over his shoulder, ‘take command. I’m going to see the captain.’

‘Yes, Centurion,’ the optio replied as he moved front and centre.

Septimus took off towards the foredeck, passing several of the ship’s crew as he went. They had been busy since dawn, preparing the ship for action, a routine drilled so well that all work was carried out without comment or command. He approached the captain slowly.

Atticus stood at the very front of the foredeck, leaning slightly over the rail as if to extend his reach through the impenetrable fog. He cocked his head slightly as he picked up Septimus’s approach, but did not turn. Atticus was three inches shorter, thirty pounds lighter, and a year older than the centurion. Of Greek ancestry, he was born the son of a fisherman near the city of Locri, a once-Greek city-state of Magna Graecia, ‘Greater Greece’, on the toe of Italy, which Rome had conquered a generation before. Atticus had joined the Roman navy at the age of fourteen, not out of loyalty to the Roman Republic, for he had never seen Rome and knew little of its democracy, but out of what he believed to be necessity. Like all those who lived on the shores of the Ionian Sea, his family feared the constant attacks of pirates along the Calabrian coast. Atticus had refused to live with this fear, and so he had dedicated his fifteen-yearlong career to hunting pirates, a hunt that he hoped would bear fruit once again that very day.

‘You wanted to speak to me?’ Atticus said without turning.

‘Yes, thanks for coming so quickly,’ Septimus said sarcastically. ‘Well, where are these pirates of yours? I thought they were expected over an hour ago.’

‘I don’t know where they are,’ Atticus replied frustratedly. ‘Our sources said their bireme passes this section of the coast every second day before dawn.’

‘Could your “sources” be wrong?’

‘No, the lives of those fishermen depend on knowing the movements of any pirates in these waters. They’re not wrong…but something is. That ship should have passed by now.’

‘Could you have missed them in the fog?’

‘Doubtful…a pirate bireme? If she passed within a half-league of here I’d have heard the drum master’s beat. No…she hasn’t passed.’

‘What if she were under sail?’

‘She can’t be under sail, not this close to the shore, especially with an intermittent onshore wind.’

Septimus sighed. ‘So what now?’

‘The fog is dissipating. We wait until it’s gone and we move out of this inlet. Without a man on that headland,’ he indicated the opening of the inlet, ‘we don’t have enough advance warning of any approach and we might be spotted in here. We can’t risk being bottled in.’

As if by Atticus’s command, a large gap in the fog opened around them. Septimus was turning to leave the foredeck when the sight off the bow arrested him. At this point on the Calabrian coast the Strait of Messina was over three miles across, and under the blue sky he could see the distant shore of eastern Sicily. However, it was not the magnificent vista opening before him that stopped him short.

‘Now we know why the pirate ship didn’t appear,’ muttered Atticus.

In mid-channel, a league away and directly across from them, three trireme galleys were slowly beating north towards the mouth of the strait. They were a vanguard, scouting ships, moving ponderously under oars in arrowhead formation, unable to utilize their sails in the calm weather of the strait.

‘By the gods,’ whispered Septimus, ‘who are they?’

‘Carthaginians! Tyrian design, heavier than the Aquila, rigged for sea crossing. Looks like the fog hid us for just long enough.’

Atticus’s gaze was not on these three ships as he spoke, however. He was looking further south along the strait. At a distance of over two leagues behind the vanguard, Atticus could see the darkened hulls of additional approaching ships, a whole fleet of them led by a quinquereme, a massive galley with three rows of oars like the Aquila but with the upper oars manned by two men each.

Septimus noticed Atticus’s gaze and followed its line, instantly spotting the other ships.

‘In Jupiter’s name,’ Septimus said in awe, ‘how many do you think there are?’

‘At least fifty,’ Atticus replied, his expression hard, calculating.

‘So what now?’ Septimus asked, deferring to the man who now controlled their next move.

There was a moment’s silence. Septimus tore his gaze from the approaching fleet and looked at Atticus.

‘Well?’

Atticus turned to look directly at the centurion.

‘Now we run.’

Hannibal Gisco, admiral of the Punic fleet and military commander of the Carthaginian forces in Sicily, was a prudent man. Ever since taking command of the Carthaginian invasion of Sicily over five years earlier, he had insisted that any significant fleet of galleys was to be preceded by a vanguard. This ensured that any dangers were detected long before the fleet proper stumbled upon them. The evening before he had transshipped from his flagship quinquereme, the Melqart, to the trireme assigned point duty for the coming day’s operations, the Elissar. They were on their way to Panormus on the northern Sicilian coast, where Gisco planned to deploy his forces back along the coast in an attempt to blockade the Sicilian ports now in Roman hands, thereby hampering their supply lines from the mainland. The captain of the galley had naturally given up his cabin for the admiral; although the cabin was comfortable, Gisco had slept fitfully, the anticipation of the coming day running through his mind. They were to pass through the mouth of the strait, where Sicily and the mainland were separated by only a league, a mere two thousand five hundred yards, and a natural route for Roman supplies. As the commander of the vanguard he planned on being one of the first to draw Roman blood that day.

Gisco had arisen at dawn and taken his place on the foredeck of the Elissar. It felt good to be in command of a single ship again, a trireme, the type of ship on which he had first cut his teeth as a captain and one which he knew intimately. He had ordered the captain to open the gap between the vanguard and the fleet from the normal distance of one league to two. He remembered sensing the captain stifling a question to the order, but thinking better of it before moving to signal to the other two ships to match his pace. The captain knew the admiral’s reputation well.

Only a year before, when Gisco was besieged in the city of Agrigentum on the southwest coast of Sicily, he had continued to resist against all odds, even though the populace, as well as his soldiers, were starving, and all attempts to alert the Carthaginian fleet about the Roman siege had failed. Gisco’s tenacity had proved to be well founded, as relief did finally arrive, and although the Carthaginians had lost the ensuing battle and the city, tales of Gisco’s fearsome reputation and determined aggression had spread throughout the Carthaginian forces.

Gisco had opened the gap to add a degree of danger to his position. Now if they encountered the enemy it would take the fleet just that little bit longer to arrive in support. He wanted the first encounter of the day to be a reasonably fair fight and not a slaughter. Not from any sense of honour, for Gisco believed that honour was a hollow virtue, but from a need to satisfy his appetite for the excitement of battle. More and more his senior rank of overall commander placed him at the rear of battles rather than the front line, and it had been a long time since he had felt the heady blood lust of combat, a feeling he relished and hoped to experience that day.

‘Run…? Where to?’ Septimus asked. ‘Those three ships obviously haven’t seen us; maybe we should just sit tight. There’s still plenty of fog banks, maybe one will settle over us again.’

‘No, we can’t afford to take the chance. The fog is too fickle. We’ve been lucky once, the lead ships didn’t spot us, but their fleet is bound to. There’s no way fifty ships will cross our bows without someone spotting us. Our only chance is to outrun them.’

Turning away from Septimus, he called back along the ship, ‘Lucius!’ Within an instant they were joined by the second-in-command of the Aquila. ‘Orders to the drum master, Lucius, ahead standard. Once we have cleared the inlet, order battle speed. Get all the reserve rowers up from the lower deck.’ Lucius saluted and left.

Atticus turned to the centurion. ‘Septimus, I need ten of your men below decks to help maintain order. Our rowers may be chained to their oars but I need them obedient and the reserves guarded. I’ll also need marines on the aft-deck – those Punic bastards are going to give chase and I’ll need my helmsman protected from Carthaginian archers.’ Septimus left the foredeck to arrange his command.

‘Runner!’ Atticus commanded.

Instantly a sailor was on hand.

‘Orders to the helmsman, due north once we clear the inlet. Hug the coast.’

The runner sprinted back along the deck. Atticus felt the galley lurch beneath his feet as two hundred oars bit into the still waters of the inlet simultaneously and the Aquila came alive underneath him. Within a minute she had cleared the inlet and the galley hove right as she came around the headland to run parallel to the coastline. As Atticus hoped, there were still some fog banks clinging to the coast, where the change in temperature between land and sea gave the fog a foothold. His helmsman, Gaius, knew this coastline intimately, and would only need intermittent reference points along the shoreline in order to navigate. After fifty yards the Aquila was once again hidden within a protective fog, but for how long Atticus could only estimate. Although he had told Septimus that he planned to outrun the Carthaginian vanguard, he knew that it would not be possible. One ship could not outrun three. He needed an alternative. There was only one.

‘Runner! Orders to the helmsman, once we clear this bank, turn three points to port.’

The runner disappeared. Atticus tried to estimate their position relative to the vanguard. The Aquila was moving at battle speed, the vanguard at standard speed. He judged the Aquila to be parallel to them…now…now ahead. The longer the fog held, the greater their chances.

It lasted another two thousand yards.

The Aquila burst out into open sunshine like a stallion surging from the confines of a stable. At battle speed she was tearing through the water at seven knots, and Atticus noted with satisfaction that within her time enclosed in the fog she had stolen five hundred yards on the Carthaginian vanguard. He was about to turn to the stern of the galley to signal the course change when the Aquila responded to Gaius’s hand on the rudder. ‘Sharp as ever,’ Atticus smiled as the galley straightened on her new course, running diagonally across the strait. Now the Aquila’s course would take her across the bows of the vanguard, Atticus estimated, at no more than three hundred yards. He gripped the rail of the Aquila, feeling the pulse of the ship as the rhythmical pull of the oars propelled it through the water.

‘Ship to starboard…Roman trireme…bearing north.’

With an agility that belied his fifty-two years, Gisco ran to the rigging of the mainmast and began to climb to the masthead. Halfway to the top he glanced up to see the lookout point to the mainland. Following this line, he looked out towards the distant coast. Sure enough, some five hundred yards ahead, a Roman trireme was moving at speed along the coast.

‘Estimate she is moving at battle speed,’ the lookout shouted down after overcoming the shock of seeing the admiral below him. ‘She must have been hiding somewhere along the coastline, invisible behind the fog…’

Gisco stared at the Roman trireme and double-checked his estimate of their course. It puzzled him. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he thought, ‘why not run parallel to the coast, why halve their lead on us?’

Gisco clambered down the rigging to the deck twenty feet below. The instant his feet hit the deck he took stock of his surroundings. The crew were frantically clearing the deck for battle. They were good, he noticed, well drilled and efficient.

He could see the captain on the foredeck, no doubt looking for him.

‘Captain!’ he shouted.

The man turned and strode towards him. ‘Yes, Admiral?’

‘What do you make of her, Captain?’

‘Roman for sure, probably coastal patrol, maybe thirty crew and a reduced century of marines. She’s fast, doing battle speed now, and she cuts the water well. She’s lighter than one of our own, maybe a couple of knots faster at her top speed.’

Gisco wondered if the captain had noticed their course. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she’s commanded by a fool. If he holds his current course he’s giving us an even chance of catching him.’

Gisco turned away from the captain and spied the Roman galley again. She was ahead, about forty degrees off their starboard bow, but instead of running parallel to the Elissar’s course and maintaining her lead, she was running on a converging course that would take her across the bow of the Elissar at a distance of approximately three hundred yards.

‘Captain, alter your course, two points starboard.’

The captain issued the order to a runner who set off at speed to the helmsman at the stern of the ship. The ship altered course slightly and Gisco nodded with satisfaction when he noted the other two triremes instantly responding to the new heading. He turned again to look ahead. The captain was right on one count – the Roman was a fool; but he was wrong on the other: their odds of catching them were a lot better than evens.

‘Shall I increase to attack speed, Admiral?’

At first Gisco did not hear the question. All his senses focused on the Roman galley, now four hundred yards ahead on his right. ‘He must know he is eating up his advantage with every oar-stroke by now,’ he thought. ‘Where is he running to?’

‘Shall I increase speed?’ the captain asked again.

‘What?’ Gisco answered irritably, his mind replaying the captain’s words that he had heard but not listened to, allowing them to form in his mind.

‘No, maintain course and speed. If we increase, the Roman may alter course and run before us, matching us stroke for stroke. We’ll let him shorten his lead in his own good time. Then we’ll take him.’

Septimus moved towards the foredeck. He had noticed the course correction when they emerged from the fog and had been instantly alarmed. What the hell was Atticus doing? He trusted the captain but their course seemed like madness. Atticus was joined on the foredeck by Lucius, and the two men were deep in conversation. The second-in-command was ten years older than Atticus. He was a small bull of a man, solid and unyielding. A sailor all his life, he too was a native of the Calabrian coast. He was known as a tough disciplinarian, but he was fair, and all the crew, especially Atticus, respected his judgement. As he spoke with the captain, he occasionally pointed ahead to the distant shoreline across the strait.

‘There,’ Septimus could hear him as he approached, ‘about two points off the starboard bow, you can see the breakers now.’

‘Yes, that’s where I thought. Lucius, take command on the steering deck. Have Gaius follow my signals once the Carthaginians fall in behind us. Make sure he doesn’t take his eyes off me. The course corrections need to be immediate.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ Lucius said, and hurried past the approaching centurion.

‘Your men in place, Septimus? Remember, once the Carthaginians get behind us you can expect some incoming fire from their archers. It’s imperative that my helmsman has all his attention on his job, I don’t need him worrying about taking an arrow between his shoulder-blades.’

‘Yes, they are. But why the course change, Atticus? We’re halving our lead.’

Atticus did not immediately answer. He looked back at the approaching galleys, two points off his port stern, a little over three hundred yards behind. Within seconds they would be running dead astern.

‘Septimus, we can’t simply run, they’ll catch us before we breach the mouth of the strait. One ship can’t outrun three.’

‘Why the hell not? They’re all triremes, surely you could match them stroke for stroke. I’ve seen how you run your slave deck. Those men are all fit. With your reserve of forty rowers they could maintain battle speed for at least another hour. The Carthaginians would never have closed a gap of five hundred yards before we reached the mouth of the strait.’

Atticus shook his head. ‘Think it through. If you were one of three men pursuing another and all were evenly matched in stamina, how would you run your prey down?’

Septimus thought for a moment. He turned to face the three galleys astern. One was in the lead with the other two off its port and starboard stern quarters. They were matching the lead ship stroke for stroke, as if they moved as one. But they’re not one, Septimus thought. They’re three. The commander of the vanguard did not need to run his ships at the same pace. Even with two galleys they sufficiently outnumbered the Aquila to ensure victory. One ship could be sacrificed.

‘We can’t outrun them,’ Septimus said aloud. ‘They’ll sacrifice one ship to run us down.’

Atticus nodded, his eyes never leaving the Carthaginian hunters. They were now dead astern. Three hundred yards.

‘Septimus, clear the fore. I need line of sight to the aft-deck.’

Septimus hesitated, one question remaining. ‘So if we can’t outrun them, what’s our plan?’

‘We need to level the odds,’ Atticus replied as he turned his full attention to the course ahead, ‘so I’m steering the Aquila between Scylla and Charybdis, between the rock and the whirlpool.’

‘Match course and speed, Captain,’ Gisco ordered over his shoulder. He heard the captain repeat the order to a runner, and a moment later the Elissar heeled over slightly as she slotted into the wake of the Roman trireme. Gisco could not see the crew of his quarry. The Romans had erected a shield wall along the back of the aft-deck using their scuta, the four-foot-high shields of the legions, in a double-height formation, ostensibly to protect the sailors on the deck, Gisco surmised. ‘That won’t protect you for long,’ he thought. He turned to the captain, his face a mask of determination.

‘It’s time to hunt them down, Captain…Signal to the Sidon to come alongside.’

Again a runner was dispatched to the aft-deck and the captain watched the Sidon break formation and increase speed, moving abreast of the Elissar.