The Road to Sardis

by Stephanie Plowman

  In the late summer news came that Lysander, who had not been at Arginusae, was in the Dardanelles with a new fleet threatening our corn ships. When he heard our entire navy, one hundred and eighty vessels, was after him, he took refuge in Lampsacus. We made for Goat River, five miles away.

  So Athens’ entire navy came to Goat River.

  Goat River is another of the places I shall never forget, since there’s nothing like a frequently recurring nightmare to jog the memory; however, it is not merely hindsight that makes me detest the place—I loathed the look of it from the moment I first set eyes on it. The river itself is sluggish, and crawls greasily into the Hellespont through mudflats baked as brown by the sun as any Egyptian. It’s deadly flat there; the only break in the dull landscape was a lowish hill on the very far northern horizon, crowned by an erection looking like a watch-tower. There were no signs of life from it, however.

  If it came to that, there were no signs of life anywhere in the vicinity of those damned mud flats—with the exception of endless flocks of gulls, that screamed more shrilly and nerve-rackingly than any birds I had ever known. The goat who had given his name to the river had long since departed, taking his family with him; even a goat could see the disadvantage attached to Goat River as a base.

  In which he showed more intelligence than our admirals did.

  By ‘admirals’ I mean our commanders other than Conon; he opposed the choice of base tooth and nail, but was out-voted by his colleagues—Philocles (not my Argive friend, but an old windbag who was always blethering about what he would do with any Spartans he might meet), Adeimantus, and two people with Sicilian experience, though not precisely the experience that had come the way of Ariston and myself. One was Menander, Tydeus’ right-hand throughout that comfortable sojourn in Catana; the other was the great man himself.

  To say the least, knowledge of the heroic line of action so consistently followed by Tydeus eight years before did not rekindle optimism in my heart, and any last hope that he might be better at sea than he had been on land was more than effectively quenched by the sight of the landing place he insisted upon.

  In the first place there was no harbour at Goat River.

  In the second place, as I have said, until our arrival the only living creatures there were the gulls. To get food our crews had to wander off to Sestos, two miles away. It was hot, being September; it was difficult to make an orderly progress across mudflats, so there were little groups, straggling about all over the depressing scene. The only people who carried out the double journey with any speed were those belonging to Conon’s squadron of eight ships, and my own men. And the latter, at least, after the first laborious trip to the market, came back mudsplashed and swearing horribly, and echoing what Conon had asked, what I had asked, what Ariston had asked: ‘Why can’t we move to Sestos? We’d have the protection of a harbour there instead of this open beach, and no trouble about provisions!’

  One could only reply, ‘The admirals chose this place because we’re directly opposite Lampsacus.’

  Not that nearness to Lampsacus cheered up either the thinking or the unthinking; even if you did not see the danger in this horribly exposed situation, by staring across little more than a mile of water, you became acutely conscious of the discomfort, for there in the large harbour Lysander’s ships rode lazily at anchor, and about the harbour crowded cluster after cluster of white houses, filled with people, inns, market stalls—good wine, good company, good food, at less than a stone’s throw from the snugly sheltering ships. In fact, being able to see so much of the enemy did not prove so much of an advantage as Tydeus and his cronies had thought; sight of the white buildings of Lampsacus made their crews acutely aware of the fact that Goat River lacked not only a harbour and anchorage but also houses, inhabitants, supplies. They grumbled more and more as they picked their weary way through the mud to Sestos—we couldn’t even see the place, because it was round a headland—and, having reached Sestos, they were not in much of a hurry to return. Our people they made fun of, because they made the journey in double quick time; I imagine it was pretty much what Conon and I had to put up with from Tydeus and the rest when on the third wretched day we attended what was laughably called a council of war. When Conon, face as hard as flint, rapped, ‘Well, even if this damned mudbank’s a base to dream about, does that excuse the rank bad discipline of most of the fleet?’ Adeimantus began to guffaw, and talk about Lysander whom we had ‘cornered’, in a manner that Heracles might have thought over-confident in describing an opponent who was a blind paralytic. In fact, it was such an insane way to talk that a horrible idea crept into my mind there and then.

  I got up and walked out. Conon soon caught me up. ‘It’s turning cold,’ he said. ‘Nothing but north-easterlies here at this time of the year. Still, it’s after October that they get extra piercing, and that’s the end of the campaigning season, thank God!’

  ‘Do you think the Spartans will let us go on playing the fool for another month?’ I asked savagely. ‘You have to hand it to Adeimantus—he doesn’t talk one way and act another.’

  Conon said, ‘He was never a genius, but he’s never been such a fool as this. Doesn’t he know that this is our last fleet? If Lysander finishes us, he finishes the City too. No more comebacks, because he can close the corn routes.’

  After a moment I said, ‘Perhaps Adeimantus isn’t such a fool.’

  ‘Not a fool? When he under-estimates Lysander . . .’

  ‘Perhaps he doesn’t under-estimate Lysander at all . . .’

  ‘Or even if he under-estimates Lysander, he shouldn’t underestimate all the Persian resources the swine has behind him. What did you say?’

  ‘I said that perhaps he doesn’t under-estimate Lysander, least of all the Persian money behind him.’

  ‘He’s using it to build ships.’

  ‘To knock out our last fleet. If he wants a short cut, and to save himself labour as well as time, the Persian treasure’s better spent in buying Athenian admirals than in building a few squadrons of ships.’

  After a long moment, Conon said under his breath, ‘It’s the best explanation, the only explanation of their criminal lunacy throughout the summer, what they’re doing now . . .’

  ‘If you accept the explanation, it’s not lunacy at all,’ I said. ‘Can we do anything?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Conon in a low, murderous voice. ‘Philocles, I take it, is out—I think he means what he says about the Spartans. But when you see Tydeus, Menander and Adeimantus as thick as thieves . . .’

  ‘Can we do anything?’ I repeated, and he said, ‘We must think—God, we must think! Paralus and my squadron are always ready for anything; if we can’t get our base shifted to Sestos, we must try to get the crews of the other ships alerted . . .’

  ‘We can be sure that Lysander keeps his folk alerted,’ I said furiously.

  ‘Well, what are we going to do? Sail out each morning to challenge Lysander to a battle, Tydeus says. When he won’t play our game, we call the war off for the rest of the day, come back here, set a few guards on the ships, let the rest of the men traipse off to Sestos to buy food, Lysander being so terrified of us, he’s plain paralysed. Well, we must do what we can. I’ll have to talk with Philocles—try to get him to take a few precautions though he’s so taken in by Adeimantus’ line of talk that he’s acting as if the war’s over, and all we need bother about is erecting the trophies.’

  He had his talk, but did not get very far with Philocles—at least, when I went wandering at midnight round the part of the camp given over to Philocles’ command, there was only one sentry to be seen, and he was three parts drunk. Not that I had purposely set my course that way; I was just so mortally weary that sleep was impossible, so I roamed about like a sick wolf. No need to worry about Paralus; with a second-in-command like Ariston, she would be fully on the alert for twenty-four hours of the day—as he had remarked, even with a set of naval geniuses in command, he would always get a que
asy feeling whenever he saw ships drawn up on an open beach, although he told himself firmly that the nightmare conditions of Syracuse could never be repeated. But I myself was thinking back beyond Syracuse, far back to the last walk a child of seven had taken down to Piraeus with an old farmer, whose grumbling voice had repeated, ‘If some of our fellows lose their grip for an hour or so in some outlandish harbour or god-forsaken beach, all of us here in Athens are finished.’

  It was a very dark night. If I moved away from the camp, I could only distinguish the sea by a slight sheen in the blackness, a whispering from the waves, and, very faint and shifting, the black and silver line where they broke on the shore. If I looked away from the sea inland, I could distinguish nothing at all. It was only that rather animal sixth sense I had kept ever since I’d been an animal in Sicily, that made me suddenly aware that someone was there in the darkness, watching me. He possibly heard me, but could not very well have seen much of me; it was more or less a shadow attacking a footfall when we went for each other. And then—too late—just as I got my hands round his throat, I discovered I had been stalked by not one watcher, but two, because just as I opened my mouth to shout for help, someone gave me a crack on the back of the head, and I keeled over.

  Since my last conscious thought had been the belief that I had been set upon by a couple of Spartans, it was no uncertain shock to come round to the sound of someone reciting Euripides.

  In a whisper there came Odysseus’ opening remark from Rhesus: ‘Diomedes, did you hear? Or was it a noise without meaning that falls on my ears? Some clash of armour?’—part of the scene when he and Diomedes make their two-man raid on the Trojan lines by night. It may seem odd, but I cheered up with the knowledge that at least the people who were going to cut my throat had a sense of humour. I even made Diomedes’ reply: ‘It was nothing, the jangle of the iron on the harness against the chariot rails. But I was frightened, too, at first when I heard the clanking of the harness.’

  My captor chuckled, and countered: ‘Be careful. You might run into their sentries in the dark.’

  ‘I will watch how I step despite the darkness,’ I replied. Sitting up and rubbing my head I continued, ‘If you do wake anyone, do you know what their watchword is?’

  ‘Well, there you have me,’ confessed my whispering captor, ‘though I doubt very much if your remarkable generals have bothered with such a trifle.’

  And suddenly I could scarcely have been more thunderstruck if Odysseus himself had stalked back from the past to talk with me—though possibly I should have found it more difficult to recognise him.

  For a man can try to disguise his voice by whispering, but the lowest of whispers cannot hide a lisp.

  ‘Whatever they’ve said about you,’ I said deliberately, ‘when you had a command, you did bother about passwords.’

  I heard him catch his breath. ‘Who do you think I am?’ he asked very quietly.

  ‘You’re Alcibiades, of course.’ And suddenly I was grinning. ‘Goat River’s the last kind of background I’d imagined for you,’ I said. ‘Are you taking up the local savages and making them the last word in fashion?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ he said half-absently. ‘Fashion’s not their strong line; fighting is, however, and there I am taking them up . . .’

  Then in a different voice he said, ‘They told me you were dead, they said you went to Cyprus and died there—but that can wait. There are other things I must talk about now; perhaps later we’ll be given another chance for talking about—about personal matters.’ He sounded oddly stilted, almost shy.

  I said deliberately, ‘Yes, I’d like that—if, as you say the chance is given us. But seeing that at present we’re acting in a way that’s plain suicidal—’

  I heard a sigh of relief. ‘So you feel that way too! Of course you would. Lycius, what are you doing here?’

  ‘I—hold on a moment, who’s your silent friend? Not a Spartan, I hope?’

  He laughed breathlessly. ‘He’s a Thracian. I assure you, one of the reasons I came down here hoping to get hold of someone with an atom of sense is the fact that I don’t look forward to the prospect of Spartans about me.’ After a moment he added, ‘I suppose some people will say it’s the only reason.’

  I thought it better to stick to indisputable facts, so answered his earlier question. ‘I’m Captain of Paralus,’ I said.

  ‘That’s not so bad,’ said Alcibiades thoughtfully, ‘but why in the devil didn’t they elect you a general?’

  I told him that I’d been ill at the time of the elections, and that, in the circumstances, it was kind of the voters not to choose me. Having to serve with these particular colleagues would have undoubtedly cut short my life.

  ‘Who are they? I must talk to them, Lycius; can you arrange it?’

  ‘I could arrange it as far as Conon and Philocles are concerned—’

  ‘Conon! I might have guessed there was one sailor among them from the single squadron that’s always on the alert!’

  ‘—but as far as the others go, I’m the last man with any chance of pulling it off.’

  ‘Why?’

  I recited their names. At the mention of Adeimantus, he was incredulous; when I named Tydeus and Menander, he sounded as grim as I had done.

  ‘I see your point,’ he remarked. ‘Even so, I must try.’

  ‘Try what?’

  ‘To get it into their thick heads that naval battles can be fought after noon. To get them to shift their anchorage to Sestos where they’ll have a harbour and a market.’

  I asked in a low furious voice, ‘Don’t you think Conon has said as much?’

  He said quickly, ‘Does everything I say still sound damnably conceited? But you interrupted me—I was going on to mention something that Conon couldn’t. Give me four to five days and I can get from two friendly chiefs a force of Thracians big enough to drive Lysander out of Lampsacus. With luck he’ll have to abandon his ships; even if he can get them out of harbour it will be playing our game, we’ll sink the lot if it comes to a battle at sea. And because he knows it, he doesn’t mean to have it that way.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I think,’ I said in a whisper.

  The old Alcibiades made a brief reappearance. ‘What I dislike so much about Lysander’s idea,’ he said superbly, ‘is the sheer anti-climax of it. If our last fleet’s going to be smashed, it’s adding insult to injury smashing it on a muddy beach at the back of beyond. Still, that’s Lysander—no sense of style. Well, Lycius, what are we going to do?’

  ‘I’ll get hold of Conon,’ I said. ‘I’ll meet you here at noon tomorrow when we’ve returned from our jaunt and I’ll take you into the camp. He’ll have called a council of war.’

  ‘Right; I’ll see my chiefs in the meantime. Lycius—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘How’s Adeimantus doing financially these days?’

  I said deliberately, ‘My idea is amazingly well—since we came to Goat River.’

  ‘Just what I was thinking,’ said Alcibiades. ‘And he’s not the only one. It’s the only possible explanation, isn’t it?’

  I went back to Paralus, told Ariston what had happened, said I’d see Conon at dawn. Then I wrapped myself in my cloak and lay down for an hour or so. I was thinking too hard to sleep, of course, and, by the time the early morning mists were drifting about on the sea like trails of dirty wool, I was actually beginning to hope a little.

  42

  One Hour in Mid-Afternoon

  I told Conon my story, said at the end, rather diffidently, ‘He’s sincere, I think.’

  Conon’s eyes met mine above the rim of his wine-cup. He grunted, but drank before he replied, ‘Are you trying to tell me you can fathom what goes on in his mind?’ But then he added in a lower voice, ‘Still, on this occasion we don’t have to worry whether he’s thinking of Alcibiades or of Athens—it’s good advice.’

  My heart leaped. ‘You’ll ask for the council of war?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Conon. />
  ‘And you do believe he means well by us?’

  Conon put down the wine-cup and stood up. ‘Whatever his motives, his advice is sound,’ he repeated. And then, suddenly, he clapped a hand to my shoulder. ‘I believe in his story about Thracian armies too,’ he said softly. ‘Whatever game he was bent on playing when he came down to the shore last night, he’ll sweat blood to save our necks now. As long as you’re serving in this fleet, we have him as an auxiliary.’

  The first part of the day passed in its usual inane fashion; as Ariston remarked sourly to me, it was the only action of any regularity in all our proceedings. Paralus hovered as usual on the rim of things, but now at least we could look on Lampsacus with different eyes. A sudden tremendous attack on the town with Thracian cavalry would drive Lysander out into the open. If the time of the attack were concerted with us, we could be ready and waiting for him. And that would be the end of the fighting season, and, with any luck, the next elections would give us an entirely new set of commanders.

  Alcibiades might be one of them.

  We stuck outside Lampsacus for the usual period of time, then came back to our so-called base. Conon gave me a significant look, I left my crew with the usual orders—keep ports closed, movable bulwarks attached, and went off to meet my cousin.

  I scarcely recognised him. He looked far older than I had ever dreamed Alcibiades could look, and his face, thin to the point of gauntness, had a strange colour, the kind of colour you get when most of the blood has ebbed away from under a tanned skin. There were great streaks of grey in his red-gold hair, and the pupils of the bright blue eyes were like pin-points. He looked like a man who for days has slept only fitfully and then, when he does drop off, starts muttering in a nightmare. For all that pared-to-the-bone look that was one of my legacies from Syracuse, I felt I must look the picture of rude health beside him.

  He had brought a groom and a spare horse with him; he told the man to wait and I mounted and we rode slowly back to the camp together. He told me that the building on the skyline with the appearance of a fort was indeed one of his castles; he had sent messages to his Thracian allies, telling them to hold themselves in readiness for an attack on Lampsacus. He described the Thracian type of fighting, the Thracian breed of horse; he spoke jerkily because he was nervous. Talking to me last night was one thing; talking to the men he would have to confront now was another. But the only direct reference he made to all that was at stake was, ‘Every time your ships come back from Lampsacus, Lysander sends scouts to follow you. You’re being watched all the time—don’t the fools realise that?’