Cato sensed Albinus staring at him, waiting for more, but the centurion kept his silence and in the end Albinus turned away, and muttered quietly, ‘Fair enough, Centurion. I understand. Don’t worry about me. I’ll keep my distance.’
‘See that you do.’
There was a shout from the mast-top. ‘Fort’s signalling, sir!’
The two officers glanced towards the small fort on the headland and saw a green pennant flicker out to one side in the wind as it rose up the signal mast.
‘It’s a challenge,’ Albinus explained. Then he cupped a hand to his mouth and shouted an order forward to the mainmast. ‘Make the recognition signal and get our colours up!’
A pair of sailors took a bundle of red material from a side locker and hurried to the ratlines, before attaching the toggles at the end of the pennants to a sheet. Then the pennant was quickly hauled up to the top of the mast where it whipped out with a dull crackle in the afternoon breeze. There was a short pause, then the pennant flying over the fortlet dipped down and vanished. The ships in the bay eased up on their oars, turned round and headed back to their anchorage. Then, almost at once, another pennant rose up above the fort and Albinus stiffened beside Cato, and then turned round to scan the horizon.
‘What is it?’ Cato asked anxiously.
‘The fort’s sighted a sail.’
‘A sail?’ Cato raised a hand to shade his eyes and looked north along the coast. He saw it almost at once: a tiny dark triangle, almost invisible against the distant coastline. He raised his other arm and pointed. ‘There! See it?’
Albinus followed the direction indicated and screwed up his eyes as he tried to make out the details. ‘No…I…Wait a moment. Yes, I see it. A galley, I think.’ He paused to look at Cato, eyebrows raised. ‘Damn, you’ve fine eyes. I’d never have seen it. I’m getting old.’ He turned back towards the distant sail. ‘Must be a pirate, keeping watch on the fleet. Well, now they’ll know we’ve made good our losses. Telemachus won’t be risking another sea battle, I’m thinking.’
Cato nodded. ‘Not if he’s half as crafty as he seems. From now on, it’s going to be a contest of strength over guile.’
Albinus scratched his chin. ‘The question is, whose strength and whose guile?’
The sky had turned a dull pasty blue as the squadron of reinforcements rowed slowly towards the beach. On deck the sailors were busy dragging up a stout cable and thick wooden stake from below deck to tether the trireme securely to the shore. The marines, and all spare hands, clustered in front of the aft deck to help raise the bows of the trireme as they approached the shore. There was a splash from behind as an anchor was dropped over the stern. The cable rasped out through the aft hawse as the vessel crept towards the shingle where tiny waves crashed and foamed up the gentle slope, before rushing back towards the next wave. Further up the beach a figure watched the ships glide in. The red cloak and gleaming breastplate revealed him to be the prefect, surveying the new arrivals. Cato stared at the prefect with a bitter expression as he recalled the contents of Vitellius’ report. Then his lips flickered into a smile as he thought of the message he had replaced the report with. By now it was well on the way to Rome. There was a gentle shudder through the timbers beneath Cato’s boots as the bows had grounded. The vessel lifted for an instant, then settled with a more solid jarring sensation and those standing on deck lurched forward as the trireme stopped moving.
‘Cease rowing!’ Albinus bellowed. ‘Ship oars, and get the gangways down!’
On either side, the rest of the small squadron drew up to the shore and beached themselves on the shingle. Sturdy ramps were manoeuvred out through the hinged openings to one side of the prow of each vessel, before dropping down on to the shore. As soon as the way was clear, Cato marched down the gangway and crunched up the shingle towards the prefect, waiting amongst the tussocks of grass that grew beyond the high-water mark. After nearly two days at sea, the ground seemed to pitch and dip beneath him and he tried to walk as steadily as he could. Ahead of him, Prefect Vitellius took a step forward and Cato saluted him.
‘Centurion Cato! Here at last. I was starting to wonder what had happened to you!’
Even though the prefect was smiling, there was no mistaking the implied rebuke and Cato clenched his teeth angrily before he could make himself reply in a cordial enough manner.
‘We came as soon as we could, sir. Ask my trierarch.’
‘There’s no need for that!’ Vitellius clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’re glad to see you. I can use the men.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Truth is, I need them badly. The way things are going I’m not sure if we’re hunting the pirates, or they’re hunting us.’
‘It can’t be that bad, sir.’
Vitellius chuckled bitterly. ‘You don’t think so? Well, right now I’ll take whatever good spirits I can get…’ The prefect paused to stare out to sea. ‘Bloody bastard pirates. As Jupiter is my judge, I’ll make them pay for daring to defy Rome.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Come. We need to talk. In my tent.’
The prefect turned and walked back towards the gate of the fortified camp, and Cato followed. Inside the camp the rows of tents stretched out each side of the main thoroughfare. Most were the usual goatskin, but a number of them were made from linen and heavily stained and worn leather, and Cato realised that they were cut from old sails to make good those lost. Men were sitting in front of their tents, and they jumped up to salute as the two officers passed by. Cato saw the tense and worn expressions in their faces and wondered what had happened in his absence.
As they reached the tents of the fleet’s headquarters, erected on a slight mound in the heart of the camp, a light breeze lifted the flaps and Cato savoured its coolness. Then the smell hit him: the sharp acrid smell of burned fat, hanging across the camp even in the faint breeze blowing offshore. Vitellius glanced round as they entered the largest of the tents, and caught Cato’s puzzled expression.
‘It’s the funeral pyres. We cremated the dead a few days ago.’
Cato glanced up at the prefect and noted, to his surprise, that Vitellius seemed to have been moved by the fate of his men. Or was it simply the inconvenience their deaths had caused him?
The prefect grimaced. ‘It was quite a sight. And there’ll be more. We lost another eight men in the night. One of them didn’t stop screaming right until the end. Between that and the raids we’ve not had much rest.’
‘Raids, sir?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Vitellius smiled wearily. ‘Our friends have kept up the pressure. Three days back they landed some men further up the coast. They’ve been picking off our sentries and foraging parties with slingshot. Every time I send out a detachment to chase them down, they turn and run for the hills. In fact, your friend Macro’s out hunting for them right now. I didn’t even have to ask him to volunteer.’
‘I can imagine, sir.’
‘At the same time they’ve tried a few cutting-out expeditions: sending in a few small boats at night to try and snatch one of the triremes.’ Vitellius gestured vaguely towards the sky as he slumped down on a couch; one of the luxuries he had brought with him from Ravenna. ‘We’ve been lucky with the moonlight the last few days, and seen them in time to drive them off. But the next few nights are going to be darker. And then…’ He shook his head.
Cato felt the dead weight of exhaustion and despair settle on his shoulders. The prefect had done nothing to take the fight to the pirates then. He had just sat inside the fortifications and passed the initiative to Telemachus.
‘What about your plan, sir?’
‘Plan?’
‘To patrol the coast. Find their base.’
‘That’s in hand. I sent six of the triremes up the coast the day after we landed. They didn’t find anything. The coast here is a mass of small islands and inlets. You could hide the Misene fleet in these waters for years without anyone discovering a single ship. It’s hopeless.’
Cato kept silent and regar
ded the prefect closely. Vitellius was clearly at his wits’ end. With the defeat at sea, and now the operation stalled on land, the situation must look bleak indeed to the ambitious aristocrat. Behind everything else that was going on lay the retrieval of the scrolls. Cato was wholly aware that his future and that of Vitellius depended on finding the scrolls and making sure that they were safely delivered into the hands of Narcissus. But whereas the prefect might suffer a fall from grace if they failed to find the scrolls, the consequences for Cato, and Macro, would be far more deadly. The prefect had to be persuaded, or provoked, into going on the attack.
Besides, Cato reasoned with himself, the stakes were high for others as well. The men under Vitellius’ command needed a victory. The enemy must not be allowed to whittle them down. If the worst happened and the Ravenna fleet was defeated, then the whole of the Adriatic could be pillaged by the pirates, and it would take months to gather another fleet strong enough to defeat them. Thousands more lives would be lost, scores of ports and settlements sacked and few merchant vessels would dare to leave port. Trade, the lifeblood of the Roman economy, would be choked off; strangled just as effectively as Cato would be at the hands of one of the executioners of the Praetorian Guard. Cato winced at the unpleasant thought. Very well then, his fate was linked directly to that of Rome. For that reason he must convince Vitellius to act swiftly. For everyone’s sake.
He coughed, clearing his throat.
Vitellius looked up, raising an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’
‘Sir, it’s the scrolls. We have to get them.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know, Centurion.’
‘Well, we can’t get them if we just wait here, sir. We…you have to do something. We can’t just let them bottle us up in this camp and bide their time. Right now, we must outnumber them. We have more men, more ships—’
‘For now,’ Vitellius cut in bitterly. ‘But it’ll be dark tonight, and every night until the next moon. You can be sure they’ll be coming back for another attempt on our ships.’
There was a sudden thrill of activity in Cato’s mind. Ideas rushed to the front of his consciousness, and possibilities and the consequences of possibilities flowed in a torrent of thoughts. Very soon, he had the outline of a plan–a small plan, to be sure–but one that would wrest the initiative back from the pirates, and mark the first step in setting the men of the Ravenna fleet back on the offensive. Cato looked across to the prefect, his eyes bright with an excitement he found impossible to repress.
‘Well then, sir,’ Cato smiled, ‘let ’em come. In fact, let’s make sure they come. Let’s offer them some bait they can’t refuse.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
‘This was not a good idea,’ Macro growled as he squinted into the darkness. Over the side of the ship they could hear the waves breaking gently on the shingle some distance away. The black mass of the arms of the small bay they had chosen for the ambush stretched out around them. Away from the land, the sky and sea blurred together into a forbidding gloom.
‘Can hardly see a bloody thing,’ Macro continued.
‘That’s the whole idea,’ Cato replied patiently. ‘It’ll work in our favour. Trust me.’
Cato could just make out the weary look on his friend’s face as they sat on the deck. All around them marines were sitting in strict silence against the sides of the bireme, weapons close to hand. Linen side screens had been erected around the deck to give the ship the profile of a merchant vessel. After six days’ cruising along the coast the disguise had finally lured some overeager pirates. From a distance, or in the dark, the bireme would pass for something far more innocent, and tempting, as it quietly wallowed in the gentle swell.
The only signs of life were up on the beach–a handful of campfires, around which huddled the sailors from the bireme. Two men stood sentry, dimly visible on the fringes of the light cast by the fire–the same light that would silhouette the bireme from the sea. That was what Cato was counting on. Somewhere, out to sea, stood the three ships that had shadowed the bireme during the afternoon. They had been cautious enough, hovering on the horizon, no doubt suspicious of such an easy-looking prey. The bireme had played its part well enough, affecting some slovenly watch-keeping before turning away from the threat at the last moment, going cumbersomely about and fleeing from the pirates as dusk fell.
The pirates too were playing their own game, having moved away as if they had given up the chase and were sailing back up the coast. Shortly before they were out of sight Cato gave the order for the bireme to head into land, steering towards the bay he had reconnoitred the day before and decided at once that it would be suitable for his trap. A concealed battery of catapults stood close to the shore at the base of each low headland, ready to sweep the surface of the sea between them when the time came to spring the ambush. Two more biremes were anchored in the shadows of a small cliff, ready to slip their cables and row into action. If the pirates took the bait there would be little chance of escape.
As Cato reflected on the details of his plan, he was suddenly struck by a terrible sense of doubt. Supposing the pirates had given up the chase, as they had seemed to, and were even now bedded down and peacefully sleeping many miles away up the coast? Come the morning the marines and sailors who had spent an uncomfortable night under arms, nerves strained in the long wait for the appearance of the enemy, would be bitter and angry and would curse the young centurion and take him for a fool. On top of their recent defeat and the pirate raids of the previous nights it could only further damage their morale. If this ambush failed Cato had no doubt that the prefect would not be willing to try anything else and Telemachus would have his victory over the Roman navy. A dangerous precedent would have been set for any other pirates lurking around the fringes of the Mediterranean. The Emperor would show no mercy to those he held responsible for such a state of affairs…
Macro stirred beside him, and peered over the side, glancing out to sea. He sniffed irritably and slumped back down beside Cato.
‘I’m telling you, they aren’t coming,’ he said softly. ‘We must have been waiting for at least six hours already. We’re wasting our time.’
‘Patience,’ Cato hissed back. ‘They’ll come.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘They’re pirates, aren’t they?’
‘Pretty bloody smart pirates,’ Macro responded bitterly. ‘They’ve had the drop on us from the moment this campaign started. What makes you think they’ll fall for it?’
‘Think about it. They’ve been snapping up prizes for months. The result is that more and more merchants have been afraid to come out of port. It’s the pirates’ very success that has been starving them of prey for the last month or so. I’d bet that we’re the first merchant ship they’ve seen for a long time. They won’t be able to resist the temptation. I’d bet my life on it.’
Macro grunted. ‘You are betting your life on it. Mine too.’
Cato shrugged. ‘Then you’d best pray that I’m right.’
‘And if they don’t come?’
Cato didn’t reply, but just sat quite still, head cocked slightly to one side.
Macro nudged him. ‘Well?’
‘Quiet…’ Cato tensed and stared out to sea, his body motionless.
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure…Over there, look.’ Cato pointed towards the black mass of the nearest of the headlands and Macro followed the direction of his finger and strained his eyes to make out any detail.
‘Can’t see anything.’
‘No?’
Macro shook his head.
‘Me neither,’ Cato admitted with a soft chuckle.
‘Very fucking funny. I just hope you find it as funny when the Emperor has us thrown to…’ Macro glanced out to sea and nudged Cato. ‘Looks like you were right after all.’
Cato snapped his head round and saw the enemy vessel at once, as if it had simply materialised from the gloom. The pirates had unstepped the mast to lower the pr
ofile and the slender oars were muffled as they slowly propelled the ship into the bay no more than half a mile away.
‘Pass the word!’ Macro prodded the nearest marine with his boot. ‘Enemy in sight. Make ready but no one moves until the signal is given. Go.’
The marine shuffled off in the darkness to spread the word and the two centurions turned back to stare at the approaching pirate vessel. Cato grasped Macro’s arm. ‘There…to one side. The other two. Looks like we’ll make a clean sweep of it.’
‘Got to catch them first.’
‘Yes…’
As they watched, the enemy vessels crept forward across the bay, gaining definition as each thrust of the oars brought them closer. Soon they could hear the soft splash and rush of the pirates’ oars and could make out the white surge of water along the bows. Above the prow of each vessel a dense mass of dark shapes crowded the fore deck, still and silent as they closed on their prey. Macro slowly drew his sword and clenched his hairy fist around the handle. He looked at Cato.
‘Not yet,’ Cato whispered. He looked past Macro to where the nearest marine grasped a boarding grapple, with a length of rope dipping down to coil resting on the deck. He caught the man’s eye and waved his hand down. The marine hurriedly lowered his head.
The enemy came on and Cato’s mind raced at the prospect of the imminent struggle. His heart pounded with excitement and his mouth was quite dry. In a moment it would all begin and chaos would rage over the deck that surrounded him. Three centuries of marines crouched motionless behind the linen superstructure and Cato could sense their tension, determination to kill, and fear. Nearly two hundred and fifty of them, each with a white band tied about his head for identification. But how many pirates were aboard those ships gliding down towards them? A hundred on each, Cato guessed. It would be a closely fought battle before the other two biremes could join the struggle. But once they did, then the fate of the pirates would surely be sealed.
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