As I had suspected, he had intercepted Ironhair's fleet on its way to evacuate the Cornish mercenaries. The meeting was accidental, just after daybreak on a windless morning, when the surface of the seas was obscured by drifting fog. When the fog cleared, the two fleets were in plain sight of each other, and Ironhair was disadvantaged by being between Connor's vessels and the too close, rocky shores of a wide bay. The fleets were almost evenly matched, Ironhair with his bireme and twenty galleys and Connor with his own bireme and eighteen galleys. But Ironhair was also saddled with an enormous fleet of smaller vessels, mainly fishing boats and shallow draft barges, destined for the shore where he had planned to meet his levies upon their withdrawal from the interior and Dolaucothi.
Ironhair surprised Connor by attacking at once. His massive bireme heeled hard over as its oarsmen put their backs into angling the huge craft out from the shore towards the Scots admiral's vessel, building up quickly to something approaching top speed almost before Connor had had time to assess what was happening. Once he saw what his enemy intended, however, Connor took immediate evasive action, swinging his bireme to the right and then angling back immediately, hard left, as the approaching ship changed course to meet his first feint. As he did so, he released the attack signal to his fleet, turning them loose against the assembled shipping that stretched in an undisciplined sprawl along the coastline, and from that moment on he gave all his attention to the task of dealing with the other bireme.
For more than an hour, he said, the two great vessels swept and cavorted in a dignified yet deadly dance, each captain seeking to outmanoeuvre and out sail his opponent and to put his own vessel into the winning position. From the outset it was clear that Ironhair's plan was to ram Connor's ship, crushing its hull beneath the waterline with the huge, metal clad ramming horn that projected from his bow. Connor's plan, on the other hand, was to bring his craft alongside his enemy's and capture it, and this desire forced him into a defensive, evasive role. He would await the enemy ship's forward rush and then sweep clear of its path , to one side or the other, before cutting back across its wake and positioning himself to await its next attack. In this, Connor had one massive disadvantage, for his desire to capture the enemy vessel, rather than simply destroy it, exposed him to a hazard that he could not match.
At each pass, the catapults on Ironhair's raised rear deck hurled pots of blazing oil towards Connor's sails, and although most of these missiles fell harmlessly into the sea, the fire fighting parties on Connor's decks were hard pressed to smother and contain the flames from the three that did land on the fighting platforms, smashing against the dry, pitched wood and throwing streams of blazing oil in all directions to ignite timber, cordage and human beings alike. These fire fighting duties were carried out grimly and in double jeopardy, since the danger of the flames—and there is no greater danger on a ship at sea—was enhanced by the danger from flying arrows. Bowmen on both vessels exchanged heavy volleys, every time they came within range. Connor told me that he had wished passionately for a contingent of Pendragon bowmen on his rolling, pitching decks, since he could see plainly how the superior speed and strength of the Pendragon longbows would have sharpened the edge for him in such a conflict.
Connor's principal strategy, however, involved a manoeuvre on which his crew had been working for some time, one that he carefully held in reserve until the time was right. Connor Mac Athol played a wily game that made his efforts to evade attack seem ludicrous and cowardly. At first, each sideslip away was without design, save that whichever way he avoided the enemy's charge, he cut immediately across their wake and withdrew to a safe distance. Soon, after several of these flights, his men could hear the jeers from the enemy vessel as they passed by. But that was what they had been waiting for; they had been working hard to earn the enemy's scorn. Now they began to work their master strategy, aiming each lumbering evasion to move themselves subtly closer to the shore. Finally one swift attack, as it went hissing by them, took the enemy vessel into the confines of the bay itself and directly towards the shallow coastal shoals. This time, as soon as the enemy ship had passed, Connor gave the signal and the driving drumbeat of the overseer changed immediately. The rowers on the left all shipped their oars for one long stroke, while those on the right dug deep and heaved, spinning their massive vessel so that its prow now lay towards the enemy's stern, within half a bowshot's distance. The left oars dipped, the tempo of the drumbeat escalated, and Connor's ship went leaping in pursuit of the other bireme, which found itself, for the first time, in the role of prey and in rapidly shoaling water.
The enemy ship's captain was now practically helpless. He had grown careless, convinced of his own superior ship handling skills, and had underestimated the man against whom he was pitched; it was a fatal error. Beneath his hull the water was growing shallower with every stroke of the oars, yet he could not break to either side without exposing himself broadside to Connor's ram. Instead, showing great courage and determination, he attempted to alter the inevitable by stopping his ship dead in the water. In the space of a single oar stroke, all his sweeps started back paddling, cutting his vessel's headway so abruptly that Connor's bireme seemed to leap forward, closing the gap between the two craft so suddenly that Connor himself was almost completely taken by surprise. It was a brilliant move, and Connor found himself admiring it even as he moved to counteract it, changing his own craft's heading so that it would sweep alongside the enemy instead of ramming it directly in the stern.
As the two vessels closed, Ironhair's oarsmen struggled to ship their oars, swinging them up and inboard, and they might have succeeded had Connor's bireme not been one oar stroke too close, moving too swiftly, and one beat ahead of them in reacting. Connor's left banks of oars swept up towards the vertical moments before the other bireme's right banks attempted to do the same, and the overtaking vessel swept along the slower one's right side, shearing the rising oars like icicles hit by a stick, smashing them to kindling and creating havoc, carnage and utter destruction among the rowers, who, chained to their sweeps, were cut down by jagged flying splinters and flailing oar stumps. Only a few benches of rowers towards the bow of the stricken vessel were able to ship their oars in time, but even they fell victims to the chaos behind them.
While the left banks of oars were high out of the water, the front right quadrant of Connor's rowers stroked again, driving their bireme sideways into their quarry. As they did so, the two vertical gangway towers fore and aft slammed down to drive their holding spikes into the other ship's decking, creating bridges to the other ship, and Connor's Scots surged forward in a screaming tide.
Ambrose, Tress and I sat spellbound as Connor described the encounter. The ensuing fight was short and decisive, he said, and he was aided by the fact that his men were not slaves and all could fight. Connor took the bireme into his possession and threw its crew, save only the slaves and leaders, overboard, to drown or swim.
Only then did he give his attention to what was happening with the remainder Of his fleet. The entire shoreline was littered as far as the eye could see with the wreckage of the smaller vessels that had sailed up from the south in convoy with the fighting ships. Eventually, he would learn that his Scots had won a great victory, inflicting huge losses on the enemy, sinking nine of their twenty galleys and crippling and capturing five others. Only six managed to escape completely. The price of the victory was three Scots galleys sunk with all hands, and two set afire. There were many survivors picked up from all five of these vessels.