"O Chares," he said at the close of the interview, "see that the metal fittings of your engine are clean and polished before you bring it aboard. There shall be no dirty gear on my ship!"
Scudding clouds hid the full moon as the Halia, with slow strokes, pulled out of the Great Harbor. Behind her came two triemiolias: the Euryalê, which had fought in the action off Rhodes the previous year, and the Agile, a new ship of the same class as the ill-fated Active. All was dark save for a faint pearly radiance from the thick clouds above.
I stood on the forecastle of the Halia with my crew and the archers, peering into the dark. On the bow and the quarterdeck of each ship stood a sailor with a hooded lantern to warn off consorts and thus avert collisions. We carried double the usual number of lookouts.
Nothing stirred ashore. Except for the armory and the bobbing lanterns of the night watch, no lights showed from the dark mass of the city, as the Assembly had forbidden night lights lest traitors signal the foe. South of the wall a few fires flickered in Demetrios' camp. Otherwise nobody would have thought that thousands of men were preparing for mortal combat. We had about seven thousand—six thousand Rhodians and a thousand aliens—plus whatever force we could raise by arming slaves. Demetrios had nearly forty thousand, not counting his piratical allies—a force as great as that wherewith Alexander had overthrown the mighty Persian Empire.
We swung wide of the Chatar Rocks. Demetrios had joined these rocks to the Southwest Peninsular by a mole. His entire army had built this mole in one day, trotting back and forth with stones and baskets of earth.
There was a step behind me, and Captain Damophilos came up. He touched Berosos' arm, pointed, and spoke low:
"Do you see anything off that way?"
"Nay, sir. It is too dark."
"Demetrios is building something new in these coves. He keeps soldiers in the hills back of the shore and warships patrolling the waters, so that our spies have not been able to get near. Keep watch, in case the moon should break through."
We crept silently south, our vision gaining strength as our eyes became used to the darkness. The coast between Rhodes and the resort village of Kallithea, thirty furlongs away, is deeply embayed. In these bays were drawn up hundreds of smaller craft—sailing ships and thirty- and forty-oared galleys—belonging to the pirates and slavers who had followed Demetrios to the island. Damophilos said:
"Now hear this. The Agile will stand guard to signal us when the great galleys come out, whilst we and the Euryalê go into these coves and clean out as many pirate craft as we can. We shall use the ram and the catapult, and we have a fire pot burning in the storeroom under this deck for lighting incendiary missiles. You archers will be given arrows wrapped in tow, and a man will light them with a torch as you shoot them into the ships. Remember: a flaming arrow must be shot from a half-drawn bow lest its speed through the air blow out the flame.
"Chares, set your catapult for horizontal shooting. You may not get a decent shot, but let fly when you are aimed at a crowd of the enemy. All of you, obey your officers, keep quiet, do not get excited, come back to your ship quickly when signaled, and do not slaughter all your prisoners. Try to capture the better-dressed ones alive, so that we can wring information from them before selling them back to Demetrios."
Then he was gone. Eons passed as we crept south.
At last we found a bay that suited Damophilos. While the Agile dropped astern, the Halia turned shoreward. The Euryalê turned also, but separately, into another bay. She was presently hidden from us by a dark point of land.
The clouds began to thin out; now and then Selene cast a dart of moonlight upon the earth. One of these shafts brushed the bay, showing ship after ship. While most were drawn up on the beach, several rode at anchor. Most were hemiolias—biremes modified for piratical purposes.
Halia swung her snout towards the rounded stern of one of these craft. We speeded up a little. A fast walk is enough to drive a ram through the thin sides of a ship; greater speed is likely to damage the rammer as well as the rammed.
We were within a ship's length of our quarry when a sleepy hail came from the deck of the hemiolia. Halia kept on.
Yellow lights flickered as our sailors kindled torches and brought them flaming up to the forecastle deck. From the anchored ship came shouts of alarm. There was a clank of weapons as men scurried to muster on the quarterdeck.
"Keep off! Keep off!" screamed a voice, evidently hoping that we were a friendly craft coming in to anchor.
Berosos said: "We are aimed squarely into that crowd, Chares."
"Shoot!" I said.
Onas struck the trigger; Talos crashed. The group on the quarterdeck, mustering with spears and swords, scattered. As the moonlight waxed, I saw a man writhing on the deck.
"We got one!" I cried—foolishly, for an attack such as ours calls for silence except for the necessary commands.
Our ram crunched through the stern planking of the ship at the waterline. The jar threw me forward against the catapult, so that I sustained a nasty knock and cut my lip against the rack.
Our archers aimed their fire arrows over the rail while a couple of sailors with torches passed from one to the next, lighting the balls of tow wrapped around the arrows. Soon a shower of fire arrows whizzed into the waist of the hostile ship, lighting it up.
From the rest of the bay came a chorus of shouts and trumpet calls and the rattle of accoutrements.
With a yell our file of marines pushed past us and scrambled over the bow to the quarterdeck of the victim. There was a brief clang of weapons, a few death screams, and the splash of many pirates diving over the side. Halia's trumpet sounded the recall. The marines came back, waving paltry bits of loot and dragging a prisoner.
Damophilos gave the command to back, as the stricken ship was settling and dragging our bow down with her. Our oarsmen pushed on their looms; the ram slid out with a crackle and a crunch. The archers loosed another flight of fire arrows.
Halia turned her bow towards another ship at anchor. The crew of this ship dropped their anchor cable, put out a few oars, and tried to run for it. They had not made more than three strokes when the Halia's ram found their side. Crash!
This time I had the sense to clutch the rail. I had little else to do, because at such a short range the pirate's deck was too low to reach with our catapult. Again we poured in fire arrows, swept the deck, and withdrew just as the moon winked out once more and the dark closed in upon us.
One other ship remained at anchor, seemingly deserted. We punched our ram into her side; then the marines went aboard and kindled a fire under the quarterdeck.
That left the ships drawn up on shore. Many were too far up on the strand to reach with our ram.
Trumpets blasted away to the north, in Demetrios' camp, and there was a half-seen scuttling on shore, as when one steps into an abandoned building and the mice run for cover. As we swung again towards the shore, a group of men appeared in the light of a campfire. Somebody harangued them. From the adjacent bay came sounds of crash and clash as the Euryalê struck her first victim.
"Range!" I called.
"Eight and a half plethra, if the dark deceive me not," said Berosos.
"Cock your piece; twelfth notch."
"Eight plethra."
"Load your piece."
"Seven plethra."
"Shoot!"