Years later I learned what was happening at that moment in Syracuse.
Gylippus’ face was almost black with fury. For a long time all his staff could get from him was the sound of swear words run together. Eventually they realised he was cursing the Syracusans—and why. ‘Obvious what they’ll do tonight,’ he shouted. ‘Slip away. Seize a strongpoint somewhere; there’s still plenty of ’em left. I’ve been trying to get out and block every escape-route—the swine here just laugh in my face, say they’re not going toiling out in heavy armour tonight.’
This I have been told by a Corinthian who talks detachedly about the whole affair—obviously to him it is nothing more than an extremely good example of a successful improvisation in tactics. But of course it is easier to be detached about success than it is to be detached about destruction.
It was, indeed, the Corinthian, acting as liaison officer with Gylippus, who had the idea of using Nicias’ own brand of feeble cunning against him.
‘Gylippus,’ he said, ‘if Nicias thought the roads were blocked, he wouldn’t try to start out, would he?’
Gylippus’ eyes bulged alarmingly. ‘But they’re not blocked, you damned fool, we can’t block ’em.’
‘But if he could be persuaded they were blocked . . .’
‘And who’s going to persuade him? If I stood outside his camp and—’
‘Not you,’ said the Corinthian, ‘but you remember, don’t you, that he thought his best way of winning here was by plotting with a few influential Syracusans—whose disgusting treasons have been discovered—leaving them very, very, scared and co-operative—’
My uncle’s face was streaked with sweat and blood—during the long argument the wound on his forehead had begun to bleed afresh—but he gave a sudden sigh of relief. At last Nicias had agreed to start the retreat that night. There remained the problem of the sick and wounded—if we had evacuated our position by sea we could have taken them with us, but by land it was impossible. But while the two generals tried to find some solution here, at least the rest of the army might assemble.
He gave me instructions for transmission throughout the camp; as I turned to go, I collided with a man entering hurriedly.
‘Nicias,’ he said, ‘I’ve come from the outpost nearest Syracuse—’
My uncle leapt to his feet. ‘An attack?’ he demanded.
‘No—we thought there was going to be one when the horsemen rode up, but they only called out that they had a message for Nicias from his friends in Syracuse.’
‘Ah!’ The shrivelled lids flickered in Nicias’ corpse-like face as the names were reeled off. It so happened that I memorised them.
‘They sent warning against setting out tonight. All the roads are guarded. Wait until morning, they said. Since you’ll have to fight your way, rest your men, make full preparation—’
‘It’s a trick!’ said my uncle vehemently.
‘A trick? You know I have friends in Syracuse.’
‘A hell of a lot of good they’ve been to you!’ Uncle, finding new strength in this nightmare of frustration, grabbed Nicias’ elbow, dragged him to the tent entrance. ‘Listen to the noise coming from that town—the whole population’s there, celebrating, shouting we’re finished. Let’s make them laugh on the other side of their faces by giving them the slip.’
‘The roads are blocked.’
‘Let’s see the fellows who say as much!’
‘You can’t, general,’ interposed the sentry. ‘After they’d said what I’ve told you, they wheeled their horses, and were off.’
‘My God, doesn’t that show it’s a trick? At least send Callistratus out with the cavalry to see if it’s true.’
No enemy ships were manned to prevent our breakout by sea. Not a single Syracusan listened to Gylippus’ furious orders to get out and block the roads. One night, one night only, and we could have reached safety. But Nicias hysterically refused to ignore his friends’ warning.
At last my uncle had to agree to wait for morning. Furthermore, he volunteered to lead the rearguard; his men were fitter, would be able to cover Nicias’ retreat.
If he had not volunteered to do this, we, fresher, more resolutely led, had good hopes of escape while the pursuers dealt with the sickly division; I thought this as the sky lightened and we left Nicias’ tent, and the names of Nicias’ friends still buzzed endlessly in my brain.
The Athenian Retreat from Syracuse
30
Retreat
My uncle sent for us at dawn, and said I was to stay with him. Callistratus was to take over the cavalry command. We were not making direct for Catana; such a move would be anticipated and opposed. Instead, with Catana remaining our final objective, we should have to make for it indirectly; we would strike inland, to reach the friendly natives in the interior, and only after resting with them and getting fresh supplies would we make for the town.
‘And while we’re painfully picking our way over the sharp stones, their archers and slingers will be perched on the heights taking every opportunity of aiming at us poor wretches toiling below,’ said Callistratus. ‘And Gylippus will have blocked every road, every pass, every ford.’
Then, without waiting for an answer, he saluted, went back outside. My uncle said to me gently, ‘I can spare you for a few seconds, Lycius.’ I stared at him stupidly, and he explained patiently, ‘He hasn’t much hope, has he? He’s probably right. I wish I could let you be with him in whatever comes our way, but he’s the best cavalry leader we have, so the vanguard will need him for reconnaissance, and I can’t spare you. So you’d better say goodbye to him.’
‘Say goodbye to—to Callistratus?’ I whispered.
My uncle smiled at me. ‘And I’m not sorry for you,’ he said. ‘You’ve had more in your short life than most people have ever had.’
I stumbled out, thinking wildly that Callistratus might have gone, not realising that this might well be our parting. But he was there, of course, waiting. I still hold to that memory; he had to go on ahead of me, but he did not go too far ahead. He waited.
Only his eyes shared my emotion; his voice, when he greeted me, was altogether that of a soldier, and a commanding officer.
‘Did your uncle order you to follow me?’ he said softly.
I nodded dumbly.
‘You didn’t ask for permission, I hope?’
‘I didn’t realise. He told me to come. I didn’t realise.’
He turned away from me, and I could not bear to go on looking at his averted face. I stared at the nightmare background to our goodbyes—our unburied dead, our burning ships, groaning wounded, sick men crying out to us not to abandon them.
‘This is to be our parting!’ I whispered.
‘It’s not the picturesque setting one would like,’ came the grave voice, and I knew he had turned again to look at me, so I faced him, ‘but your father and mine scarcely had a better setting for their leave-taking.’
Then, as he walked swiftly away, I stood looking after him, knowing my life went with him. And then I returned to my uncle.
So death was coming for us as it had come for our fathers and my brother. Theron had been the lucky one to go in the fierce excitement of battle, when success seemed possible. He had gone out to meet death; fourteen years before our fathers, and now we ourselves, had to wait for it.
It had been a hideous camping-ground, marshy and haunted by memories of defeat and sickness, yet it seemed in those last moments to offer some kind of refuge. It was at least familiar; we were tired, deathly tired, so many in our poor shattered army were loath to leave this spot.
I speak of an army, but our departure was more like that of an entire population being driven out of a ruined city, a true democracy of misery. And there were those who could not leave—the unburied dead, for whom we could not perform the last rites, and, worse, the sick and wounded. From these living sufferers we had to tear ourselves, literally, for they clung to us. begging us not to abandon them, appealing to the claims of l
ong friendship, clinging to our knees and, when we tore ourselves free, they crawled beside and behind us as long as they could.
And when they had fallen back, and we could no longer see them, we could hear them—oh, God, we could hear them!
I put Glaucon on my horse.
Charilaus had been allowed to join Nicias’ division. Anthemion, still sick with fever, needed a friendly arm to keep him going.
It was hot, very hot, so hot that the sun dried the sweat on our labouring bodies. Soon, under the scorching sun, orders would be given in parched voices, cracking with thirst; feeling would leave feet and legs and bodies, yet we would force them on.
We saw not so much the actual landscape as a nightmare country, never-ending marching and misery, always another range of hills to climb, a stony riverbed to cross, a sun-baked plain. The first river was the Anapus, a narrow stream with deep banks. It was blocked by Syracusans. We were still always the better in fighting, and Nicias’ troops forced the passage of the river, and put its defenders to flight. What wore out our strength was not hand to hand fighting, in which blows could be given and returned, but the constant harassing warfare of cavalry and light-armed troops, who seized every opportunity to make attacks which heavy infantry could not return.
The attacks went on almost without stopping on that first day’s march as the ground was so favourable to the enemy. Because of the constant attacks, we covered only five miles on the first day, spent the night on a hill not far from the Anapus.
On the second day of the march we were aiming to reach a rocky height called the Acraian Cliff, where we should be on high ground, within reach of our native allies, could rest, could find some roundabout way of reaching Catana. But the approach was difficult, through a very rough pass, across which the Syracusans, guessing the direction we would take, built a wall. Because of ceaseless harassing, we covered only twenty stadia* that day, and camped for the night on the rough ground to which we descended.
This I know is bald and dull telling. No doubt, for a start, I should give more details, but all the sharp clarity of remembrance goes to, not the name of a mountain or a cliff or a stream, but to constant thirst, and tongues swelling like monstrous fungi, to bleeding feet little better than pulp, to the ever present, shrill, screaming whistle of descending javelins, so unceasing that soon you lacked the strength to push your shield up to protect yourself.
On the third day we were terribly harassed by the enemy cavalry all along the line, while the murderous rain of darts never seemed to cease. We fought back as best we could, but Nicias’ people ahead of us lost heart, clamoured to go back to our camp of the previous night.
On the fourth day my uncle insisted that we should try once more to reach the cliff, so we began to climb the terrible, rugged path, with missiles every moment hurled down on our heads, and cavalry charges from time to time. It was dreadfully hard to keep any order, but on that fourth day we struggled on against all hindrances until at last, against all belief, we came within sight of the point for which we had been striving.
There was the cliff, but there was a wall between us and it, and behind it a large force of Syracusan infantry. And as our aching eyes toiled up to the longed-for height itself, they saw it held by a great force of light-armed troops, who hurled missiles down at us as we struggled along below.
Nicias’ people tried to attack the wall, but failed—there were too many spears and shields before them, too many darts raining down on them from above. They had to turn back which meant we too had to retire a little way, and halted to rest. Torrential rain and a thunderstorm broke at that moment, and spirits sank even lower amid the more superstitious.
That night our plans were changed. We must find another route to the cliff, said Nicias, so now we marched along level ground. But on that level ground, the Syracusan attacks, especially of cavalry, grew worse than ever. We were always surrounded by enemies; if we advanced, they gave way, but if we fell back they pressed us hard. We in the rearguard were special victims, yet, though we had so many wounded, the army still kept its order. But the attacks were so incessant that in the whole day we only advanced five or six stadia.
That night Nicias came to see my uncle and said our plans must be changed again. Our food supplies were nearly finished, and our many wounded were so badly hurt that they were quite disabled. We must fix on an entirely different escape route, must make now for the south-east, for Camarina and Gela. The enemy would not be expecting this, so a pass might be found unguarded.
By this time Nicias looked incredibly old, too old to be alive; my uncle still had not got over his fever, and his hands were always shaking. I stood a few paces behind him, marvelling that he could still think. Thought, I felt, was quite beyond me now.
Nicias had gone, it seemed; my uncle’s voice called me from an immense distance. I stumbled blindly forward; my slung shield banged against the back of my neck and my hips. I thought that if I were reduced to crawling next day I would look like a tortoise.
My uncle said, ‘I’ve a special job for you.’
Amazing how you can make that final effort. I heard and understood every word he said. He told me of the new route they had fixed upon, a road crossed by a number of rivers. For most of the year these were dried up, stony beds, no more, but we had left the retreat too late (he said this quite dispassionately, with no bitterness now) and the rainy season had begun. The ford crossing the first of these rivers, the Kakyparis, should be undefended; then we could turn and march up the river valley, far more pleasant, we were told, than the grim struggle up the stony gorge we had just left.
With his forefinger he traced the line of river and valley in the damp dust beside him; I have only to close my eyes to see that thin hand in the firelight, making slow work of the job because it still shook with fever.
Nicias had said he had sent to our native allies asking them to seize the river crossing, but he was wandering in his speech and wits now, and my uncle could not be sure how many days had passed since the message had been sent—if, of course, it had been sent at all. If it had been before we left Syracuse, aiming in a seemingly different direction, the allies might well have held the passage for some days, then left, hearing we had taken another route.
‘I want you to go with two of the native guides to find out what’s happened,’ said my uncle. ‘If the enemy are building another wall there, I want to know in advance.’
As we rode away the younger guide spat and asked, ‘Why didn’t you Athenians send Demosthenes first?’
I said, ‘He would not have accepted the command.’
‘Then why come now?’
‘Because he wanted to bring the army home.’
‘The army wanted to go too,’ said the younger guide. ‘Only the frightened one wanted to stay.’
As to what happened to me in the next two days, I can be brief. When we came to the river crossing, we found it in enemy hands; by the light of torches they were building a wall and a palisade there, piling masses of rock with a thump and clatter that enabled us to approach undetected. For a moment we whispered, then the younger guide went back with the news.
I said to the older man, ‘Is there a side path?’
‘Yes,’ he muttered, ‘but it’s difficult, and they’ll be watching it.’
‘We’ll have to take our chance. Is there a place where we can leave the horses?’
There was a kind of cleft among the rocks lower down the stream; we left the horses there. At least they would not die of thirst. Then we sought the side path. There was a hard climb over rocks before we struck it, but at last the guide whispered to me that we were near it, and in the same instant we heard voices, the clink of armour, and two of the enemy patrolling the path came into sight, met, greeted each other, laughing.
The guide whispered to me, ‘This is the only place we can get through!’
‘We’ll get through,’ I said softly, loosening my sword.
We could not afford to wait until both men were c
omfortably out of sight. The moment they finished their brief conversation, moved apart, still laughing, I began to move forward from the rock behind which I had been crouching, was launching myself up, the full weight of my body behind my sword, and while the more distant guard was still laughing, struck at the other’s throat in which the laughter had just died.
I do not think he saw me. He went over backwards without a sound, almost dragging the sword from my grasp as he fell.
The other guard, roused by the clang as the first fell, was on me. Again it was easy, he more or less spitted himself on my sword. But he had shouted as he rushed at me, and men were scrambling over the rocks towards us, were coming at us from all sides. I killed four and then I was clear, but not before one of them had hacked at my upper arm and a sticky warmth, rather than any pain, told me I was wounded.
But we won clear, that was the point; they soon gave up chasing us among the rocks in the darkness. I was a little dizzy at first, but soon my arm started throbbing so painfully there was no danger of my losing consciousness. The guide bound up the wound with a strip of his cloak, and then, with darkness still about us, we started a desperate search for allies for my uncle’s division when it reached the Kakyparis.
Even I never dreamed that it would never reach the Kakyparis.
* There were roughly eight stadia to a mile.
31
‘The bravest way’
By daybreak, our united army had ceased to exist; Nicias’ division had advanced so fast, my uncle’s march was so clogged by the sick and wounded, that there were now two quite separate armies. Nicias never halted to give my uncle any chance to catch up with him; the rearguard, which had borne the brunt of enemy attacks throughout the long retreat, was left to fend for itself.
Nicias’ troops reached the ford of the Kakyparis; once again our people triumphed in hand to hand fighting. They charged down the steep bank of the stream, crossed the ford, drove away the Syracusans. Then they caught sight of enemy troops posted on the lower hills commanding the entrance to the river gorge, so that way was barred.
The Road to Sardis Page 23
