And then, they were there. The first sail nicked the horizon at mid-morning, and by noon all five were visible, and gaining. We were sailing at the speed of the slowest — Nike, I’m sorry to say. They had long-hulled triremes that cut the water like dolphins, and they ran off three stades to our two.
The sun had passed its zenith, and I poured wine over the leeward rail and put the helm down for Vecti, now visible — at least, to anyone who had been there before — on the starboard bow. By the will of the gods, the timing was perfect. They were well up with us, and it was late enough in the day that a cautious trierarch would be scouting the coast for a place to camp.
East by north. An hour, and the island filled the horizon. And then I turned and ran due west again. The Phoenicians were now hull up, perhaps twenty stades away. Perhaps less. Honey, hull up is when you can see the hull of a ship over the rim of the world — the horizon. With a stubby merchant ship, you can see a glimmer of his hull at thirty stades or more, but a low warship is invisible until he’s close — unless his mast is up.
Seckla had gone aboard Gaius’s ship, to support him. He’d left me Leukas, who was becoming one of us — sea time bonds men quickly, or leaves them enemies. So it was Leukas who stood by me at the helm. Doola was amidships. Everything was laid by, ready for action. Every man aboard knew that the easiest solution to our problem was to weather the island of Vecti and leave the Phoenicians gasping in our wakes — and run for Gaul.
Doola came astern, about an hour before I’d have to execute the heart of my plan. He looked out to sea and made a motion, and Leukas smiled and walked amidships down the catwalk.
Doola wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘I want to sail south,’ he said. ‘I confess that your plan is better — safer. I agree that Demetrios is pretending that all of us have his knack for weather and sailing.’
I nodded.
‘But I want my wife,’ he said. ‘If it was… Lydia… left at Oiasso. If it was your Briseis, of whom you speak in your dreams-’ He met my eye. ‘I am the old, mature man. I am the solid man, the one whose shoulder you all cry on. But I want something. I want my wife.’
I had sworn to live and die with these men. They were my brothers. And what, exactly, were we? Were we merchants? Were we warriors?
What would Heraclitus say?
Well, he would most likely have said something dark and mysterious and difficult to make out. But he insisted to a group of us once that in friendship, men came closest to the gods because friendship was selfless. He gave a eulogy once for a boy who died protecting another boy from dogs — he said that this fiery soul had gone straight to Elysium, because there was no finer death than giving your life for your friends.
I didn’t stand there pondering it.
I just want you to understand that there was no way that I was telling Doola no. In three years, I don’t think he’d ever asked me for a single thing.
We were slanting down on Vecti, on a quarter-reach, with the wind a few points off the stern.
‘Everyone ready to row,’ I called. Everything would now depend on the ability and willingness of my friends to trust me and read the signal book.
Because I was throwing the plan out of the window.
There was one advantage to having the smaller ships. We were lower in the water.
What I was about to try was insanely risky. It made me smile: in fact, as soon as I’d made my decision, I began to grin uncontrollably. There is a feeling you get, as a commander — a feeling you get when you know you’ve made the right choice, even if you fail.
I had it immediately.
I grinned at Doola. ‘We’ll get your wife,’ I said. We were six stades off Vecti, racing for the westernmost point of the island. In the old plan, we should have dropped our masts and turned north to row through the channel.
‘Signal that we will turn to the SOUTH.’ I pointed at the Great Blue.
Doola had the signal tablet, and he began to flash my bronze-faced aspis. We had an alternate signal system with lanterns, and another with cloaks. The sun isn’t as common in northern waters as he is at home.
Amphitrite signalled that they understood.
Euphoria signalled that they understood.
But Nike shot in under my stern. Gaius leaned far out over his curved stern. ‘ South?’ he bellowed.
‘South!’ I called. ‘Trust me!’
Gaius shrugged, and his ship dropped astern.
‘Signal again,’ I said.
One by one, the three ships acknowledged.
‘Sails down on the signal!’ I called. Doola repeated it in three flashes. This, we had practised.
‘Do it!’ I roared.
Leukas’s men sprang into action, and our sails dropped to the deck, our masts came down with a rush and no one was killed. The deck crews grabbed the billowing canvas, trapped it against the deck and sides and began folding it aggressively. The triakonters had the harder job — no real deck crews, less space, no deck or even a good catwalk.
But the sails were gone in the beat of a heart. Even a nervous heart.
Before the way was off us, I had turned my trireme south by west — out to sea, and headed for the deep blue.
We were going to spend a night at sea, in the most dangerous waters in the world. On the positive side, the sun was golden orange and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
Against the coastline, our low hulls ought to have been invisible, and we were rowing west and south out into the open ocean. If the enemy saw us, or deduced our course, we’d be caught. On the other hand, we’d know almost immediately when they figured out our ruse because they would have to turn — to tack across the wind, and with their sails up, that would show at quite a distance.
I watched those sails the way a coach watches his runner at the Isthmian Games, or the Olympics. My heart was in my throat. It beat twice as hard and made my gut ache.
On and on we rowed — not at racing speed, either. I knew we were in for a long haul, and the wind was still blowing from east to west. It should have favoured us, but we wanted to go south, and our sails would give us away. Even poor Amphitrite had to row, and she was a pitiful rower.
After an hour, I cast her a tow. My two hundred rowers were her only hope. Otherwise, her twelve oarsmen were going to burst their hearts.
Passing the tow cable used some time. And we rowed some more, and I watched those ships.
And then they all took their sails down.
It was late afternoon by this time. If our plan had worked, then they had ‘followed’ us into the channel between Vecti and Alba. They’d have had to take their sails down, to row east into the channel.
But one ship kept her sails up. And as I watched, that ship tacked across the wind and came down towards us.
I cursed.
Doola came aft.
‘He’s not onto us yet, but the Phoenician trierarch smelled a rat. He’s sending one ship south, just to have a look.’ I watched him. ‘When he’s hull up to us, then he can see us. We’ll know the moment he catches us: he’ll turn back north and start signalling like mad.’
‘And then what do we do?’ Doola asked.
‘We raise our masts and pray to the immortal gods,’ I said.
It was two hours before he caught us — late enough that we began to hope darkness would creep over the rim of the world and save us. But the gods were not with us, and we saw him suddenly spin about on his oars, and we knew the game was up.
Every one of our ships had his masts laid to, with heavy hawsers already laid to the mastheads. The masts went up; the sails came out like the rapid blossoming of flowers and the oarsmen relaxed with muttered curses. Men rubbed their arms, or each other’s backs, and we ran towards the setting sun at a good clip.
But the moment the sun touched the horizon, I put my helm down and headed south. Due south. The wind had backed a few points, and we were committed, now. And there was no way the Phoenician scout could see us. We should be lost in the dazzle of the setting sun, or the gods hated us.