‘Perhaps you’ll come too,’ I said.
He scratched his beard. ‘Prizes,’ he said aloud.
And then he turned and ran for his ships.
The squadrons were putting every hull in the water — indeed, the Athenians were fitting out half a dozen captures from the battle, although none of them was fit for sea quite yet. But we had volunteers that morning — hoplites and other middle-class men who offered to pull an oar. I had intended to take only Lydia, but it became plain to me that, again, Themistocles was right, traitor or no — we had to be ready to fight again. So I lost an hour putting together crews for all five of my ships. I put Megakles into the ship Hector had taken, with Hector and half a dozen Athenian archers and as many hoplites as marines. We promised the oarsmen their freedom at the right end of the sea if they would row, and they did, at least that day. We renamed the ship, and Hector called her Iris, to no one’s surprise.
We were not the last ships off the beach, but Xanthippus’s Horse Tamer was making the turn by the island and preparing to enter the open sea by the time my column was formed, with Naiad and Iris in the lead where I could watch them, and Black Raven and Amastris and Storm Cutter behind me. There were almost two hundred Athenian ships in four columns, over stades of sea. We rowed from the beaches to Psyttaleia, and there I caught up with Cimon’s squadron.
Then we saw the difference between the old sea wolves and the new ships made plain. Eurybiades had done well to train this fleet — better than many I had seen in action — and they could row, they could back water, and they could manoeuvre. But sailing and sea-keeping in a pursuit are very different from keeping a careful line, forming an orb, and backing water. Now the new Athenian ships with their heavier, slower design were struggling, and their deck crews fumbled with raising sail.
Cimon turned out of the column. We had come off the beach as a mob and then made our way through the narrows at Psyttaleia in single file, but now he turned north towards Phaleron and raised his sails in ten beats of a calm man’s heart — beautiful seamanship. And every trireme in his squadron followed suit, so that they seemed to blossom like flowers.
We followed his lead. I could hear Hector and Megakles shouting at a new and unwilling crew and I didn’t want to pass them, so we lost distance on our leader, but soon enough their boat-sail set, and then their mainsail, and Naiad was twice as fast with her good Ionian crew. Lydia had the sails on the wood already and they went up like glory, and the three old pirates behind me were as fast, and then we were running along Xanthippus’s inboard column, passing ship after ship. Xanthippus waved, or perhaps shook his fist, as we passed — certainly Cleitus looked none too pleased, but if I was going to contribute my part of the wedding, I needed some ready money and there it was, four hours’ sailing ahead of me.
It became clear as we ran down on the enemy that they were in no condition to fight. They had almost no formation — indeed, three hours into the morning, I could have snapped up a pair of little merchant tubs, but they weren’t worth the bother. The Ionians weren’t stopping to protect anything, the Phoenicians had their morale broken, and the Egyptians, although we didn’t know it, had been stripped of their marines by Mardonius — Egyptian marines are crack troops and no mistake — and consequently the Egyptians didn’t dare try any kind of conclusion with us, but simply ran downwind.
It was glorious.
Cimon and I exchanged just two signals all day, one query from me and his answer that we’d stick together.
But it was heady stuff, to be at sea on a perfect autumn day, not a cloud in the sky, the sea blue, the sky bluer, the wind behind us, the sun warm — running at a fleeing enemy! I wish I could tell you some great event, but it was simply beautiful to go along, to eke every scrap of speed out of the hull, only to have to slow again to avoid over-reaching the slower ships. Naiad was a fine ship, but Iris had a curve to her hull — a common enough flaw in hasty boatbuilding, or so Vasileos used to tell me — and she sagged off to starboard all the time, keeping Megakles and Hector busy.
Well before evening, I let Lydia have her head, and we raced past the ships ahead of us and caught Cimon’s Ajax. Because of the perfect wind and the oars all being in, Seckla was able to lay me alongside Ajax in easy hailing range.
‘Are — you — going — to — weather — Cape — Zoster?’ I roared.
Cimon vanished for a moment and then reappeared. ‘Yes!’ he called back. ‘Good idea!’
I had my people brail up the corners of my great sail until Lydia proceeded at a more sedate pace and we dropped back into our slot in line. The ships were now spread over the seas — we had, for the most part, six or seven ships’ lengths between each ship in our column, and half a dozen stades between the columns; indeed, the seaward column was more like a flock of birds. As the day went on, it became obvious that there would be no fight. Our enemies were running.
Our course had been south of west all day, past Phaleron and Aegina just visible on the starboard side. In fact, some ships of the seaward column turned due south and camped on Aegina’s beaches, but kept on a more westerly course. Cape Zoster protected a set of beaches, the last really good beaches before Sounion, and I promise you, not a man in my ships or Cimon’s was eager to return to those beaches.
We had plenty of daylight left. I remember this mostly because what came next surprised me. My head was down, looking after Leukas, who was in great pain despite a draught of poppy from one of the doctors on the beach. All I could do was hold his hand and sacrifice to the gods. I did both. Something bad was happening in his guts.
‘Better have a look,’ Seckla called. I thought perhaps he was just trying to give me a break — is it horrible to say that spending time with a dying friend is hard on the soul?
But Seckla was not just buying me a minute’s reprieve from my conscience. Technically speaking, we didn’t have to ‘weather’ Zoster, because the westerly allowed us to swing past without much course change. But when we were well past we could see a big portion of the enemy fleet — and we knew there were no allied ships north of us.
‘Ten, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-four,’ I counted. I looked back at Seckla. Brasidas came up.
I thought that they were Ionians. I didn’t recognise any ships, but they were still many stades ahead of us. The problem was that we were no longer in company with the rest of the allied fleet; they were well over the horizon already, headed for anchorages and beaches on Aegina and the islets.
Cimon gave the signal for us to form line.
We obeyed. But we were under sail, and before the ships came up with him he’d turned further north, so that we formed our line at a narrow angle to the coastline.
After almost an hour of very tense sailing Cimon flashed our signal for taking our sails down and preparing to fight. Naturally this slowed us a good deal, but our oarsmen had had a picnic all day and were happy to get a little exercise, or so the wags phrased it. Still, by the time we had all twenty ships in line, oars out and in good order, the Ionians were gone. They didn’t stop or slow or threaten. They just ran.
Except the three that were coming towards us with men waving olive branches in the bows.
I didn’t know any of them, but we picked one up, and Cimon’s ships took the other two. Mine was Chians — that is, men of Chios. The navarch’s name was Phayllos and he knew me — knew my ship, in fact.