It would have been more terrifying, if I hadn’t been so thirsty.
We ran north, and north. One of our Africans sprang off his bench at about noon, took his oar in hand, ran to the side and jumped.
He was gone in a few moments.
The sun was relentless, for autumn in the north.
I tried to sleep. Tried to daydream. Tried to imagine sex — Briseis, Lydia — or combat. Anything that would lift me and take me from water. But a dream of Lydia’s lips became my tongue questing her mouth for water, and a daydream of fighting Persians became a picture of drinking their blood.
About noon, Doola and a pair of our fishermen rigged the charcoal fire amidships and began to boil seawater. They took the biggest cauldron they had and got it boiling, and the vapour that rose off the boiling water they collected in a tent made of Doola’s bronze breastplate. They collected it as rapidly as they could, and in an hour’s work they got about two cups of drinkable water.
They accomplished very little, except that they made everyone feel better. And the water was passed around. One man — one of the Greeks — tried to drink the whole cup, and when one of the Albans pulled it away, he spilled it.
Alexandros drew his sword and refused to let the oarsmen gut the Greek. The young man was becoming an officer.
Doola went back to boiling water.
The coast of Alba resolutely refused to appear.
On and on we ran north, and I lost my ability to tell time. Time passed. Eventually, the sun set again. Towards last light, I thought I saw sails in the south, but I had sparkles in my eyes and I had already spoken twice to Heracles by that time. I don’t think these were true visions, but merely phantasms of my waterless brain.
And then came the night.
Had I been in my right mind, I would have been afraid of running on a rock-bound coast, but perhaps I no longer believed in the coast of Alba. Yet I could think of nothing but water, and if I slept, it was fitful, and if I woke, I was not fully in the world. I think that at some point in the night a sea monster, or just a whale, broached near us and vented, and I was not even scared, but merely curious with the lethargy of the dying.
I could go on, but I shan’t. Eventually, the sun rose.
And revealed the coast of Alba. Rock girt and grey, even on a bright day, Alba rose from the sea like my monster, and my heart with it.
I don’t remember saying anything to anyone, but in moments, the deck was astir and everyone was awake. Behon staggered aft and stood with me, and muttered — whispered — things. Sittonax came aft after him.
‘He says you’ll make a fine landfall,’ Sittonax whispered.
Behon pointed a little east of north. ‘The island of Vecti, he says. Foreign ships come there.’
I put the bow at Vecti and we ran on.
By the time the sun was clear of the eastern horizon, the island was obvious, set away from the coast, and I could make out the eastern headland.
‘I assume the beach is on the landward side?’ I asked.
Behon shrugged. ‘Never been there,’ he said, through Sittonax.
And then the last hour. Two men were dead — slumped at their benches, gone in their sleep. We put them over the side, and the deck crew went to their stations as if they, too, were dead.
I was going to have to turn west into the channel between Vecti and the mainland of Alba, and then land stern-first on what I hoped was a beach. I would need the rowers to row.
We made the turn, and the mainsail came down in a rush and tangled the rowers, and for minutes we rose and fell on the swell, unmoving, crippled by our own fatigue and our timing. And then, as slowly as a snail on a log, we got the sail clear and the rowers began to row, like small boys trying to row for the first time in a fishing boat.
Pitiful.
An hour passed.
Another.
Now I could see the beach, and there seemed to be people gathered there.
Slowly, like raw beginners, we turned the ship, got the bow to the channel and backed her onto the beach, catching crabs with every stroke.
If the people on the beach hadn’t rushed to our aid, we might have lost the trireme at the every last. The port-side oars failed — men simply stopped rowing. Perhaps they thought we were home and safe. And the tide and waves caught us and threatened to throw the hull up the beach and break us.
But Albans waded out, grabbed our ropes and got our stern aground. Behon called out to them, and Tempo, and they waved.
And water came aboard, in skin, in light wooden buckets and big bronze beakers and shallow bowls — every man, woman and child on the beach suddenly had water, and I had the discipline to watch as men drank, and then I couldn’t stop myself. A light-eyed man gave me a tin pail, and I drank and drank. And paused, and drank again.
And drank and drank.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about thirst is how very quickly you recover. All that is required is water. In moments, your head is clear; the lassitude falls away.
If you have been without water too long, there may be cramps.
I had cramps.
I slumped to the deck and looked at the tin bucket, and what I realized after a few breaths was that I was looking at a bucket, a household bucket, perhaps for feeding cows, and that it was made entirely of tin.
11
The wind came up at midday, while we were still in an orgy of drinking the water. The blow began from the east, and as the wind went around the points of the compass it rose and rose, and when it settled as an easterly, it shrieked along the beach like a racehorse.
We got rollers under our keel and moved our black ship up the beach. I was afraid of storms, but I was more afraid of being caught by the Phoenicians with my keel in the water where they could just tow her off.
And then, full of water, we were given a meal — and we went to sleep. I’d love to tell you that we posted guards and acted like good sailors or even good pirates, but we passed out, and it was twelve hours before most of us were up.
I had the energy to help a dozen other men pitch a tent — to pull Seckla into it, lie him on blankets and curl up by him with Doola on one side of him and Sittonax on the other. It was cool in mid-afternoon, and promised to be cold at night.
In the morning, Seckla was moaning on his bedroll. I knew what came next. In the dawn, I considered putting a knife in him. Gut wounds are horrible. I’d watched a few.
But Doola’s eyes were open, and I knew he’d never forgive me.
But again, Behon worked to our rescue. He found a doctor — one of the Kelt doctors, who were also priests, men of learning and often musicians — and led him by the hand to Doola’s side.
‘Good morning,’ said the white beard, in a passable imitation of Attic Greek. Then he rolled Seckla over and examined his stomach wound for some time.
‘No food,’ he said. ‘Nothing but water. I’ll be back.’ He picked up his heavy staff and left our tent.
Seckla moaned, but he didn’t scream. Yet.
Outside, we could hear rain on the tent, and I went out. We were two hundred men in four tents, stacked like cordwood; the easiest way out was to crawl under the edge. It was wet, and cold.
I found Behon standing in the rain, and Sittonax. We walked through the downpour to the water’s edge, and looked out into the mist. The wind was from the south, and moderate enough.
Sittonax led me up the beach to the warehouses. There were six of them, built of timber and thatch, and a pair of stone roundhouses, not unlike the Venetiae houses; not unlike a military tower in Boeotia, either, except that the stones were smaller and completely unmortared.