I was still young then.
Heads up, sailors!’ I called from the bow. ‘Attention to orders!’
Miltiades was turning out of the line, and he had a square torn from his big red awning flapping at his stern.
‘Hoist the boatsail,’ I called, and Black echoed it in his curious singsong accent.
We turned with the steering oars, the rowing oars held clear of the water but ready to engage — all to save the rowers’ strength. I looked back along our line, and I saw them come from line abreast pointed north to line ahead pointed east in fine style — one of the very manoeuvres that Dionysius had made us practise, in fact. Nearchos followed us, and eight of the Chians came out of their line and followed us — Neoptolemus and his contingent, I later learned. That made me grin — twenty-five ships were shorter odds, and now the Phoenicians couldn’t just ignore us or we’d wreck them. I wondered what the Samians were doing to avoid envelopment at their end of the line, but fifty stades is a long way to see on a hazy morning.
We sailed due east with a strengthening breeze at our backs, and the water tore down our hulls, and we sang hymns and drinking songs. Miltiades sent an oarsman over the side, and he called out to each ship as it passed, ordering us to prepare to turn to port and form line ahead facing north when the red square flew again. I understood well enough, and I expect that all the other captains did, too — again, Dionysius’s training paid off.
Opposite us, the Phoenicians and the Aegyptians didn’t react to our manoeuvre, but carried straight forward under oars. The Aegyptians were in a mix of heavy ships and pentekonters, light ships that we Greeks would no longer put in the line of battle.
We got three stades to the east before they reacted, and by that time Miltiades’ Ajax was even with the eastmost ships in the Phoenician division, so that we were actually threatening to outflank their fleet. For those of you who have never fought ship to ship, and I think that’s every one of you, a rowing ship is most vulnerable to a ram in the flank, or the long side of the ship, where the bronze beak can roll you over or split the planks of your side and leave you to swim in the deep dark sea. Or sink in your armour and feed the fish.
We watched them with the avidity of men watching a sporting event. Late — very late — the tip of their crescent began to turn east to face us, but they were rowing and we were sailing, and although they were able to keep pace, their squadron began to string out over the sea, losing all hope of formation. We were strung out too, but the wind moves at the same speed for all, I suppose, and we still held our line. And they were rowing flat out to race against us.
Miltiades was the best fighting sailor I served under. Later, every man would praise Themistocles. He was a rabble-rouser and a politician, and he made Athens the greatest sea power in history, but Miltiades — like Dionysius of Phocaea — was a pirate and a seaman.
We raced two more stades to windward, and the breeze continued to grow behind us — the hand of the gods, we said to each other. Miltiades began to wave, and I sent a runner to signal Stephanos, astern of me. We were about to turn.
Miltiades stood on the helmsman’s bench of Ajax, the red square bundled under one arm, his other arm hooked in the bent wood of the trireme’s stern, watching the ships behind me. On mine, Black had the bow full of sailors standing about the boatsail mast, and Mal had the oars out and peaked, ready to stroke. Galas had a grin from ear to ear, the oars steady under his arms, ready to turn.
‘Prepare for a hard turn to port,’ I roared. ‘On my command!’
By the gods, I thought, this is going to be glorious, win or lose. I had seldom gone so fast in a trireme — the wind directly astern had such power. I wondered if we could carry any of it through the turn.
I also noted that Miltiades was stiffening his ship by sending his marines and extra deck crew to the windward side, and I followed suit. Anything to get that railing down as we turned — or rather, anything to keep the leeward rail out of the water. I’d never heard of a trireme rolling over in a turn, but I didn’t want to be the first one to do it, either.
Heartbeats — my heart thudding against my chest, as if it would pulse right through the new Persian armour I wore. The hushed expectancy — the sound of the wind, and a gull screaming.
Miltiades let fly the red cloth, and I raised my fist.
‘Hard to port,’ I called.
Galas called his orders, and long training and good discipline told. Every port oar dipped together, and touched water — held. The starboard oars gave way. The ship heeled like a chariot on a turn — over, over farther — until my heart was in my throat and every man on deck had to hold the rail, and the port-side rowers had their oars so deep in the water they couldn’t withdraw them. Somewhere amidships there was a scream as an oar broke and a man took the shaft in his guts.
And then we were around, and the sun was shining, and our ram was pointed at the Phoenicians, and we were racing like a spear thrown by Poseidon for the flank of the enemy line. Miltiades was around in style, and Stephanos was at my side like an eager dog — our line filled out even as I watched. The Cretans were no slower, and the Chians trailed away in some confusion, but that only served to make our line look longer.
As soon as the Phoenicians saw us turn, they began to turn to meet us, but they were fifty or so individual ships, not a squadron. And their rowers were tired.
The wind was so strong that it was pushing us even with our turn, even with our sails down. I began to eye the beach and the rocks at the foot of the bay — the east end — with a professional eye.
Then I ran amidships to the command platform.
‘Diekplous,’ I called to the helmsman. ‘Oar-rake and right through. Then turn upwind — west.’ Miltiades and I were facing four or five of the fastest Phoenician vessels, but they were the very eastmost. And if we oar-raked them, there was no point in lingering — they’d never come back to the battle. Right? Understand, lad? Because if we broke their oars, they couldn’t row, and Poseidon would take them to the bottom of the bay and wreck them. Got it, my blushing beauty? I’ll make a navarch of you yet, my dear.
Galas tapped his oars — a little to the west, and a little more, to compensate for that wind. Our rowers were pulling perfectly. My ship was half a length ahead of Miltiades when we engaged the first Phoenician. I can’t be certain, but I think we were the first to engage that day.
Galas overcompensated for the wind, and we crossed the bow of our target fifty feet out — a deadly error had we been moving at the same speed, but we weren’t. We were faster, and he leaned hard, having learned his lesson, and Mal called for extra effort from the port-side oars, and we heeled over again and slammed home into the Phoenician’s cathead, shattering his row-gallery with the reinforced beam at the top of our ram. The whole starboard side of his ship seemed to explode as our beak ripped down the benches, and his seams opened and he was gone under the waves. That’s what speed does for you in a fight.
‘West!’ I roared, elated. It was the cleanest sea kill I’d ever seen. Apollo was at my side and the liberation of Greece was at hand.
Miltiades’ men were cheering as they rammed the second Phoenician and went straight at the third, rolling him over, two kills in the time it takes to tell the story. Stephanos’s helmsman made the same error as Galas, overcompensating for the wind, and he missed his diekplous and swept past, but as luck would have it his bow caught the enemy ship’s oars at the end of a sweep and broke them, killing as many oarsmen as our more spectacular strike.
Some ships missed their attacks altogether, and after our initial success, the Phoenicians rallied and struck back, but their rowers were tired and the only ship they killed was one of Nearchos’s, rammed amidships with its beak stuck in its prey, as can happen when a ship strikes too hard.