His words echoed around the harbour as they were taken up and repeated by the captains on the other ships. The speech was effective, though the Huns still grumbled, and Belisarius took advantage of a sudden breeze to put to sea again.
My sickness worsened as the fleet navigated around the headland of Cape Malea. It was unbearable. The endless pitching and rolling of the deck, even in a flat calm, the cramping of my empty guts, the dry retching, all made me pray for death. Dreadful as it felt at the time, my inability to eat might well have saved my life.
When the fleet reached the port of Methoni, Belisarius decided to give his fatigued and sickness-ravaged soldiers a few days of rest. He ordered the bread-sacks to be opened, only to discover that the bread had mouldered into a foul-smelling, virtually inedible paste.
This disaster was entirely due to the greed of John of Cappadocia, Justinian’s corrupt financial minister. He had been responsible for supplying the provisions of the fleet, and had ordered the bread to be only lightly baked in the fires of the public baths in Constantinople. Army bread was usually baked twice into a hard, biscuit-like substance. The loss of weight that the baking process caused was accounted for by a deduction of one fourth. By ordering the bread to be lightly baked, John kept for himself the deducted amount and also the fuel that should have been used in the fires.
Consider that this man, who placed his own profit before the health of the Roman army, was a chief minister of the state! The Empire was corrupted in body and soul, and the rise to office of such parasites as John of Cappodocia is proof of that corruption.
The soldiers were starving, and so the spoiled bread was foolishly distributed anyway, with predictably catastrophic results. Hundreds of men died from consuming it. Those like myself, still afflicted by sea-sickness and unable to keep any food down, were spared. Worse might have followed, and the entire expedition dissolved, had not Belisarius dipped into his own purse and hurriedly procured supplies of fresh bread in the town.
From Methone the fleet headed to the island of Zante, where it was delayed for another sixteen days. Our demoralised, half-starved, sickness-ridden soldiers were subjected to fresh hardships when the boiling heat of midsummer spoiled the casks of fresh water.
Fresh water was the only thing keeping me and my sick comrades alive. I can still taste the sour, lukewarm tang of the tainted stuff they made us drink instead. I clung to life by a miracle, but fresh sickness ravaged the Heruli and carried away a few more to the afterlife. My friend Girenas and his brother were among the casualties. Their bodies were consigned to the watery deep and their souls to Christ, though I suspect they would have preferred to spend eternity in Woden’s feasting halls.
Our fleet limped on to the island of Sicily and made landfall at Caucana. The landing place, a rocky plain of lava that stemmed from the base of Mount Etna to the sea, was a bare and exposed spot. Belisarius was resolved to advance no further to the coast of Africa until he had some idea of where the Vandal armies were camped.
In this he was wise, for his little army was in a shocking condition. The hardships of the voyage had combined with a growing terror of the Vandals to reduce many of the soldiers to a pitiful state. Even the warlike spirit of the Heruli was all but extinguished, and I overhead many an alarming conversation between my comrades.
“If we are attacked by the Vandal fleet, then we must take to flight,” I remember one saying to his friends, “the Vandals are the best sailors and sea-fighters in the world, and I lack the strength to stand, let alone fight.”
This met with a general murmur of agreement from the pale, washed-out men around him. “Even if we make to land, what then?” croaked another, “a long march in the desert, with no cover, and two or three Vandal armies to fight at the end of it.”
“There are more of them than us,” added a third man, “besides, they will be well rested and fed, and fighting on their own territory.”
I heard a great deal more in this gloomy vein while the fleet dithered at Sicily. Belisarius resorted to sending out a spy, in the person of his secretary Procopius, to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of the Vandals. Procopius, an eager and dauntless young man who hero-worshipped the general, returned a few days later with reliable information that Gelimer had left Carthage to spend the summer at his inland palace at Hermione. The Vandal king, it seemed, was unaware that the Roman fleet had sailed, and there was nothing to stop us from landing and marching on his capital.
Belisarius was not the sort to ignore such an advantage. On receiving the news he immediately put to sea again. A Heaven-sent wind blew the fleet to Malta, and hence to within sight of the African coast.
The fleet drew near to the shore of Caput Vada, a narrow spit of land that projected a long distance from the mainland out to sea. Belisarius held a council of war on his galley to decide whether a landing should be attempted here. I know little of what passed between him and his officers, save that Belisarius prevailed against the general opinion, and gave orders for the army to land that same day.
Three months had passed since we departed Constantinople. I was lifted onto a boat, and then obliged to wade ashore on legs that shook under me like those of a new-born calf. The African sun beat down mercilessly as I tripped and stumbled through the warm water, using my spear as a crutch.
Fifteen thousand soldiers and six thousand horses, along with their arms, war engines, stores, water and equipment, made an appalling mess of the previously spotless African beach. The landing was chaos. All discipline and order were forgotten as this host of sick, frightened and exhausted men and beasts struggled to shore. If the Vandals had attacked then, they would have straightaway tossed us back into the sea. Fortunately, Gelimer and his army were a long distance away and blissfully unaware of what had just crawled onto their coast.
Belisarius knew how vulnerable his army was. He and a group of officers galloped away in search of a suitable place to build a fortified camp. They soon returned, heralded by a cloud of dust, and to groans and curses from the men gave orders for work to begin on a ditch and rampart, about half a mile inland.
Several hundred reluctant infantry were detailed for the task and marched away with a troop of Hunnish cavalry for an escort. Wary of attack from sea, Belisarius also ordered the fleet to re-form into a semicircle with a guard of five archers stationed aboard each ship.
Meanwhile I lay on the warm golden sand, blinking up at deep blue skies and wondering how in God’s name I had come to be washed up here, at the furthest reaches of the earth.
I had not lingered long before I felt a boot nudge against my ribs.
“Get up, Coel,” rasped Pharas, the commander of the Heruli, “I saw you walk ashore, so you can walk to the camp. Shift, you lazy bastard.”
Pharas was a flat-faced, mean-eyed brute, and best obeyed. I picked up my spear and painfully struggled to my feet. My horse was among the beasts still being disembarked from the ships, so I joined one of the straggling columns of infantry making their way towards the camp.
Chapter 16
After just a day’s rest, Belisarius ordered the army to break camp and advance on Carthage, which lay some ten or twelve days’ march to the north. His advance guard seized the town of Syllectus, which was unguarded by walls and lay close to the sea on the road leading to Carthage. The citizens and country folk made no attempt at resisting our spearmen, and meekly gave up the keys of the town.