Masters of the Sea Trilogy: Ship of Rome, Captain of Rome, Master of Rome

‘Estimate she is moving at battle speed,’ the lookout shouted down after overcoming the shock of seeing the admiral below him. ‘She must have been hiding somewhere along the coastline, invisible behind the fog …’

Gisco stared at the Roman trireme and double-checked his estimate of their course. It puzzled him. ‘That doesn’t make sense,’ he thought, ‘why not run parallel to the coast, why halve their lead on us?’

Gisco clambered down the rigging to the deck twenty feet below. The instant his feet hit the deck he took stock of his surroundings. The crew were frantically clearing the deck for battle. They were good, he noticed, well drilled and efficient.

He could see the captain on the foredeck, no doubt looking for him.

‘Captain!’ he shouted.

The man turned and strode towards him. ‘Yes, Admiral?’

‘What do you make of her, Captain?’

‘Roman for sure, probably coastal patrol, maybe thirty crew and a reduced century of marines. She’s fast, doing battle speed now, and she cuts the water well. She’s lighter than one of our own, maybe a couple of knots faster at her top speed.’

Gisco wondered if the captain had noticed their course. ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she’s commanded by a fool. If he holds his current course he’s giving us an even chance of catching him.’

Gisco turned away from the captain and spied the Roman galley again. She was ahead, about forty degrees off their starboard bow, but instead of running parallel to the Elissar’s course and maintaining her lead, she was running on a converging course that would take her across the bow of the Elissar at a distance of approximately three hundred yards.

‘Captain, alter your course, two points starboard.’

The captain issued the order to a runner who set off at speed to the helmsman at the stern of the ship. The ship altered course slightly and Gisco nodded with satisfaction when he noted the other two triremes instantly responding to the new heading. He turned again to look ahead. The captain was right on one count – the Roman was a fool; but he was wrong on the other: their odds of catching them were a lot better than evens.

‘Shall I increase to attack speed, Admiral?’

At first Gisco did not hear the question. All his senses focused on the Roman galley, now four hundred yards ahead on his right. ‘He must know he is eating up his advantage with every oar-stroke by now,’ he thought. ‘Where is he running to?’

‘Shall I increase speed?’ the captain asked again.

‘What?’ Gisco answered irritably, his mind replaying the captain’s words that he had heard but not listened to, allowing them to form in his mind.

‘No, maintain course and speed. If we increase, the Roman may alter course and run before us, matching us stroke for stroke. We’ll let him shorten his lead in his own good time. Then we’ll take him.’

Septimus moved towards the foredeck. He had noticed the course correction when they emerged from the fog and had been instantly alarmed. What the hell was Atticus doing? He trusted the captain but their course seemed like madness. Atticus was joined on the foredeck by Lucius, and the two men were deep in conversation. The second-in-command was ten years older than Atticus. He was a small bull of a man, solid and unyielding. A sailor all his life, he too was a native of the Calabrian coast. He was known as a tough disciplinarian, but he was fair, and all the crew, especially Atticus, respected his judgement. As he spoke with the captain, he occasionally pointed ahead to the distant shoreline across the strait.

‘There,’ Septimus could hear him as he approached, ‘about two points off the starboard bow, you can see the breakers now.’

‘Yes, that’s where I thought. Lucius, take command on the steering deck. Have Gaius follow my signals once the Carthaginians fall in behind us. Make sure he doesn’t take his eyes off me. The course corrections need to be immediate.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ Lucius said, and hurried past the approaching centurion.

‘Your men in place, Septimus? Remember, once the Carthaginians get behind us you can expect some incoming fire from their archers. It’s imperative that my helmsman has all his attention on his job, I don’t need him worrying about taking an arrow between his shoulder-blades.’

‘Yes, they are. But why the course change, Atticus? We’re halving our lead.’

Atticus did not immediately answer. He looked back at the approaching galleys, two points off his port stern, a little over three hundred yards behind. Within seconds they would be running dead astern.

‘Septimus, we can’t simply run, they’ll catch us before we breach the mouth of the strait. One ship can’t outrun three.’

‘Why the hell not? They’re all triremes, surely you could match them stroke for stroke. I’ve seen how you run your slave deck. Those men are all fit. With your reserve of forty rowers they could maintain battle speed for at least another hour. The Carthaginians would never have closed a gap of five hundred yards before we reached the mouth of the strait.’

Atticus shook his head. ‘Think it through. If you were one of three men pursuing another and all were evenly matched in stamina, how would you run your prey down?’

Septimus thought for a moment. He turned to face the three galleys astern. One was in the lead with the other two off its port and starboard stern quarters. They were matching the lead ship stroke for stroke, as if they moved as one. But they’re not one, Septimus thought. They’re three. The commander of the vanguard did not need to run his ships at the same pace. Even with two galleys they sufficiently outnumbered the Aquila to ensure victory. One ship could be sacrificed.

‘We can’t outrun them,’ Septimus said aloud. ‘They’ll sacrifice one ship to run us down.’

Atticus nodded, his eyes never leaving the Carthaginian hunters. They were now dead astern. Three hundred yards.

‘Septimus, clear the fore. I need line of sight to the aft-deck.’

Septimus hesitated, one question remaining. ‘So if we can’t outrun them, what’s our plan?’

‘We need to level the odds,’ Atticus replied as he turned his full attention to the course ahead, ‘so I’m steering the Aquila between Scylla and Charybdis, between the rock and the whirlpool.’

‘Match course and speed, Captain,’ Gisco ordered over his shoulder. He heard the captain repeat the order to a runner, and a moment later the Elissar heeled over slightly as she slotted into the wake of the Roman trireme. Gisco could not see the crew of his quarry. The Romans had erected a shield wall along the back of the aft-deck using their scuta, the four-foot-high shields of the legions, in a double-height formation, ostensibly to protect the sailors on the deck, Gisco surmised. ‘That won’t protect you for long,’ he thought. He turned to the captain, his face a mask of determination.

‘It’s time to hunt them down, Captain … Signal to the Sidon to come alongside.’

Again a runner was dispatched to the aft-deck and the captain watched the Sidon break formation and increase speed, moving abreast of the Elissar.

The captain turned to Gisco. ‘The Sidon is in position,’ he said, but the admiral was already brushing past him to the side rail.

‘Captain of the Sidon!’ he bellowed across the forty yards separating the two galleys as they sped along, their oars once again matching each other stroke for stroke.

Karalis, the captain, identified himself on the foredeck.

‘Captain, increase to attack speed. Maintain for ten minutes and then increase to ramming speed,’ Gisco shouted with resolve. ‘Push the Romans hard, Captain, whip your own slaves until they drop from exhaustion, spare no man. I want the Roman galley slaves spent. When your rowers collapse we will overtake you and run them down.’

‘Yes, Admiral.’ Karalis saluted and immediately turned to issue orders to the slave deck below.

Gisco watched the Sidon leap forward, unleashed, as if she had thrown off a dead weight, her speed increasing to ten knots.

He turned again to watch the Roman galley, the blood in his veins mixing with adrenaline as he sensed the approach of battle. It was now just a matter of time.

Atticus focused all his attention on the waters ahead, trying to read every nuance in the waves. His concentration was interrupted by the approach of a runner.

‘The second-in-command begs to report, Captain, one of the Carthaginians has broken formation and has moved alongside the lead ship.’

Atticus kept his eyes on the waters ahead. The water was calm, the rock still two thousand yards distant. He had time. His orders to Lucius could not be trusted to a runner, he needed to speak to him in person. He double-checked the waters off the bow again and then turned and ran down the length of the ship to the aft-deck. Lucius was staring through a chink in the shield wall to the galleys behind.

‘Report, Lucius,’ Atticus said.

The second-in-command turned and straightened. ‘Just as we expected, Captain, one of the Carthaginians has broken off and has just increased to attack speed. She’s already closing the gap. The other two have taken up flanking positions on her starboard and port aft-quarters, but they are maintaining battle speed.’

Atticus brushed past Lucius to look through the shield wall to see for himself. The three Carthaginian galleys were in arrow formation as before, but now the lead ship was outpacing the other two.

‘Lucius, let him come to within one hundred yards and then let fly. Attack speed. Match him stroke for stroke. He’s nothing to lose so he’ll push us hard. He’ll keep pace for a few minutes then he’ll push to ramming speed. Hopefully we’ll reach Charybdis before that. When we do I’ll signal for ramming speed, then for the oars. We want him off guard, so keep them close. We can’t allow them time to react.’

Lucius nodded. ‘Understood, Captain, I’ll watch for your signal.’

Atticus reached out and clasped his second-in-command on the shoulder, feeling the calm strength there, trusting him. ‘See you beyond Charybdis,’ he said.

‘Or in Elysium,’ Lucius replied with a smile.

Septimus had watched Atticus outline his orders to Lucius without comment. He did not understand the strategy that Atticus was dictating, although the captain had been right about the Carthaginians. They were sacrificing one ship to wear down the Aquila, to leave her helpless, unable to even limp away at standard speed. The captain turned and ran once again to take up position on the foredeck. Lucius returned to looking through the shield wall at the approaching galley, the marines holding their scuta in place grimly as arrow after arrow struck their protective wall. Septimus stood beside the second-in-command.

‘Lucius, what are Scylla and Charybdis, the rock and the whirlpool?’

‘Scylla is the rock and Charybdis is the whirlpool,’ Lucius replied, never taking his eyes off their pursuer. ‘The ancients believed that both were once beautiful sea nymphs who displeased the gods and were punished. Scylla was transformed into a rock that reaches out into the sea to claw at passing ships, and Charybdis into a whirlpool that would swallow ships whole as they tried to avoid Scylla.’

Lucius paused, judging the distance before bellowing down to the slave deck, ‘Drum master! Attack speed!’

Septimus could hear the drum master repeat the order to the two hundred sweating slaves as their pace increased perceptibly, the Aquila instantly responding. Lucius looked through the shield wall again and grunted his approval before continuing as if he had only paused for breath.

‘Any ship that doesn’t know the strait – and we’re counting on the fact that the Carthaginians don’t – may find herself running along the Sicilian coastline. On this side of the strait you have to run between Scylla and Charybdis, between the rock and the whirlpool.’

Karalis thought for a moment that the Roman ship would not react, perhaps resigned to her fate, or perhaps wanting to fight and die with honour rather than run. Maybe he would get the chance to bloody his sword after all. Karalis was Sardinian by birth, as were most of his crew, and although he respected the strength of his country’s Phoenician masters, he despised their condescension. He fully understood the admiral’s strategy, but this did not assuage his anger, as he knew it was because he was Sardinian that his ship had been chosen to be sacrificed. Just as a smile began to creep onto his face, as he relished the idea of robbing the Carthaginians of first blood, the Roman craft responded, increasing to attack speed. The captain cursed. The Sidon was still one hundred yards short of the Roman ship. He would never catch her now. Even from his initial vantage point at the rear of the vanguard, he could see that the Roman trireme was a faster, sleeker ship than his own. He estimated that she was at least two knots faster, which meant his rowers had to worker harder to keep pace. None of that mattered though, he thought. Even the best galley slaves could not maintain attack speed for longer than fifteen minutes. At ramming speed they would collapse after five. The captain would follow orders. He would keep the pace unrelenting. He would push his slaves past exhaustion, past endurance. They would tear the heart out of the Roman galley slaves, and then both ships, Sardinian and Roman, would stop – the Sardinians to rest, the Romans to die.

Atticus wiped the spray from his face as he refocused his eyes on the sea ahead. The Aquila was now making eleven knots, her attack speed. He stuck out his right arm, a signal to Gaius to make another minor adjustment to the ship’s course, keeping her just right of Scylla, the rock. Atticus estimated that they had increased speed some ten minutes ago. He knew the measure of his slave crew, knew their worth, and knew that by now they were reaching their limits. Once again he swept the sea before him with his eyes.

‘There!’ he shouted to himself. ‘There she is … dead ahead, eighty yards!’

He quickly turned and looked back the sixty yards to the aft-deck. Lucius was staring directly at him. ‘Now, Lucius!’ he shouted, and pumped his fist in the air, the prearranged signal.

Lucius’s order carried clearly along the length of the ship:

‘Ramming speed!’

Karalis glanced at the two Carthaginian galleys one hundred yards behind him. They were drawing further behind with every stroke the Sidon took, although the captain knew that once the Roman vessel was stationary, the Carthaginians would be upon her within a minute. He walked quickly back along the deck to the steps leading down into the slave decks below. The drum master was seated at the foot of the steps, keeping the rhythm a notch above attack speed in order to match the Roman trireme. It had been ten minutes; time to increase to ramming speed. Even though he knew his ship would miss the action of the final kill, he could sense the blood rushing through his veins in anticipation of this final part of the chase. He had never continued on ramming speed past two minutes. Normally that was all that was required to bring his galley to its top speed of twelve knots, enough speed to drive the bronze ram of the Sidon through the heaviest timbers.

‘Drum master, ram—’ His words were cut short by the sight of the Roman trireme increasing her pace to her top speed. He hesitated for a second, perplexed, then gathered his wits: ‘Ramming speed, drum master, ramming speed!’

Karalis ran to the foredeck to confirm what he saw. At only one hundred yards’ distance the Roman galley filled his field of vision. She was drawing ahead slightly, her faster lines giving her the advantage at top speed. Karalis was dumbstruck. Why by the gods would the Romans increase speed unprovoked? Surely once she went to top speed her rowers would only last mere minutes? The captain of the Sidon was still trying to understand the Romans’ lunacy when suddenly, within one stroke, all two hundred oars of the Roman trireme were raised clean out of the water.

At ramming speed the bow of the Aquila tore through the water at thirteen knots, the drum master pounding eighty beats a minute, forty strokes for each of the trireme’s two hundred oars. Atticus leaned forward over the bow rail, measuring the distance between the Aquila and the rim of the whirlpool ahead. He stuck out his right hand again for a minor course adjustment, the ship responding instantly to Gaius’s expert touch on the tiller sixty yards behind. He dropped his arm and the ship steadied on its final course, one that would take the galley to the very edge of oblivion, the gaping maw of Charybdis. Atticus afforded himself a brief look over his shoulder to the pursuing enemy galley. The shield wall was obscuring his vision; however, he could tell by the line of her oars that she was matching their course adjustments, point for point, wary that her prey might suddenly make a drastic course change in a bid to escape. He turned to the bow again, refocusing all his attention on the point where the Aquila would skim the edge of the whirlpool, now forty yards away … now thirty … twenty …

He had to be exact. Too soon and the ship would not have enough momentum for steerage; too late and the starboard rowers would fall victim to the currents of Charybdis.

It was now, the moment was now, the bow of the Aquila was ten yards short, Charybdis was upon them. He spun around, looking for Lucius, finding him riveted to his post on the aft-deck. Their eyes locked.

‘Now, Lucius!’ he roared.

Lucius responded, ‘Drum master, raise oars!’

The order was instantly repeated below in the slave decks. The drum beat stopped. The slaves threw themselves forward, pivoting their oars, lifting the blades clear out of the water.

The Aquila sped on, at first her speed checking imperceptibly. Atticus sprinted the length of the galley to the aft-deck, barely registering the terrified faces of many of the marines who had never witnessed the fury of Charybdis. To his left the churning waters of the whirlpool were speeding past the Aquila, only six feet from the hull, running counter to the direction of the trireme but not hindering her progress.

Gaius stood immovable at the rudder, his gaze steely as he sought to keep the tiller straight along the axis of the ship, the true course of the Aquila vital if she was to avoid becoming the victim of her own trap. The captain took up station beside him, his hand resting lightly on the tiller, searching for a telltale tremor that would betray any pressure on the rudder’s blade.

Atticus saw Gaius’s reaction a heartbeat before the minute tremor under his hand confirmed the helmsman’s incredible reflexes and he gripped the tiller tightly. Beneath the Aquila an unseen tentacle of current, too weak to attack the seventy-ton hull, was building against the rudder, threatening to force the blade off true. Within seconds the pressure had multiplied tenfold and the muscles in both men’s arms were tensed and flexed as they struggled to keep the tiller aligned.

Time slowed as Atticus’s mind counted the seconds it would take to sail past the whirlpool. Beside him Gaius’s face was mottled from exertion while beneath him speed bled from his galley as the enemy closed in. The sound of Lucius’s voice filled the air, sounding the ever-decreasing gap between the two galleys. ‘Seventy yards …! Sixty yards!’ and all around him the faces of the crew were frantic as they witnessed the struggle of their captain and helmsman. Underneath it all, Atticus felt the rudder shift slightly under his hand and for an instant a panic flared in his heart that he had cut his course too close to the vortex.

Hold your course, Aquila, his mind roared, trying to connect his will to the ship.

Almost within an instant the pressure on the rudder was released, and Atticus knew the Aquila was through, the waters around her hull becoming calm once more as the whirlpool fell off her starboard stern quarter. He spun around to his second-in-command.

‘Lucius, prepare to get under way. Get below decks, have all the reserves assigned plus any additional crew available. Do whatever’s required, but I need attack speed immediately.’

‘Yes, Captain,’ he replied, and was instantly away.

Atticus moved to the stern rail to watch his pursuers. Now, he grinned with satisfaction, the Carthaginians would feel the wrath of Charybdis.

The Sidon cut through the water at twelve knots, closing the gap on the Roman trireme by ten yards every five seconds. Karalis had wavered for an instant, unable to comprehend the Roman captain’s actions, before his years of command experience took over. He realized they would be upon the Roman ship within a minute. Karalis shrugged his questions aside and began issuing orders to his assembled crew.

‘Prepare for impact! Assemble the boarding party!’

They would ram the Roman galley through her stern, a killing blow, taking her rudder and holing her below the waterline. While the Romans were recovering, his boarding party would spill over the stern rail, killing the senior officers who would be stationed there. He would lead his men personally, they would spare no one, and when his ship finally disengaged, tearing her bronze ram from the hull, the Roman trireme would drag her chained slaves beneath the waves.

The gap was down to fifty yards when the Roman vessel re-engaged her oars. You’re too late, fool, the captain thought. The Sidon was at the point where the Roman crew had inexplicably raised oars. He would be upon them within fifteen seconds.

On the slave deck of the Sidon, the galley slaves were oblivious to the action above decks. Chained to his oar, each of the two hundred men was enclosed within his own private hell. For many of them, years at the oar had brutalized them and they worked in silence, their whole world focused on the constant rhythm of their oar-stroke, the backbreaking pull, the quick release to bring the oar forward, a second’s respite, the muscles straining again through the next pull. Sweat poured to mingle with fresh blood raised by the taskmaster’s lash across their backs, as man after man collapsed in exhaustion, to be savagely beaten where he fell as a reserve took his place, the unrelenting pace never abating.

The thirty rowers of the starboard fore section of the Sidon were the first to strike Charybdis. Not six feet from where they stood, on the other side of the hull, the current of the whirlpool sped past them at twenty knots. Keeping to the beat of the drum master, the rowers brought their oars forward and stuck their blades into the water in unison. Instantly the oars were ripped from their fingers as the current took hold of the blades and pushed the oars parallel to the hull. The slaves on the lower two rows screamed in agony as the oars of the upper row, fifteen foot long and fifty pounds in weight, spun on their mountings and slammed into them, killing many instantly. Within the instant marked by the drum master’s beat, the second section of thirty rowers endured the same fate, fuelling the destruction of the slave deck. The starboard side was in chaos, a mayhem of broken men. The port side never missed a beat, the rowers continuing at full tilt, completing the trap.

The air around Karalis was split by the sound of shattering timbers and cries of pain from the slave decks below him, and the Sidon heeled violently as momentum was lost on the starboard side. He ran to the starboard rail in time to see the second section of oars collapse against the hull, the air again ripped by the sound of his ship and her rowers being destroyed beneath him.

‘By the gods,’ he whispered as he saw the cause, fear coursing through him.

The ship heeled further to the right as the left-side oars continued their stroke, pushing the bronze ram into the current of the whirlpool. The Sidon was gripped as if by the hands of a god and whipped around to starboard, throwing Karalis and those around him to the deck. The archers stationed on the foredeck were thrown into the maelstrom of the whirlpool, their cries cut off as they were sucked beneath the tortured waters.