Ship of Rome

by John Stack

  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 thei
r 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.

  Karalis looked frantically towards the aft-deck, praying for respite but finding none. The helmsman was dead, his chest staved in where the tiller had struck him a killing blow. The Sidon was out of control.

  ‘You men, to my aid!’ Karalis shouted to three sailors who were lying on the deck around him, realizing that, if he did not check the Sidon’s momentum once she cleared the current, the galley would spin her stern into the whirlpool and the ship would be lost.

  The sailors were dumbstruck, petrified, unable to comprehend the forces attacking their ship.

  ‘Now!’ Karalis bellowed. ‘Before I cast you overboard to the monster beneath us!’

  They were instantly on their feet, their fear of the captain and his threats overcoming their terror and confusion. The men followed the captain to the aft-deck, the violently spinning ship causing one to lose his balance and fall over the side rail.

  The force of the turning ship was pressing the rudder hard against the bulkhead, as if it were nailed to the very timbers of the ship. The three men took hold of the six-foot-long tiller and, with all their strength, attempted to heave the rudder back to true. The resistance was incredible, the twenty-knot current gripping the bow of the Sidon, causing water to rush past the stern, engulfing the blade of the rudder, transferring its energy up the shaft to fight the strength of the three men. The resistance lessened as the bow cleared the whirlpool and, although Karalis and his men fought hard to bring the rudder to true, he knew the fight was hopeless, the momentum of the eightyton galley too great. With his fears echoed in the cries of his men, Karalis felt the whirlpool grip the stern of his ship, sucking the vessel deeper into the maelstrom, dooming all on board.

  At only sixty yards’ distance, Atticus could hear the screams of the slaves and the snapping of their oars as Charybdis took hold of his enemy. Within seconds the galley had swung her bow into the vortex, which spun the enemy ship until her stern was facing the Aquila. Atticus watched in dread fascination as a group of men fought the tiller of the enemy vessel, their forlorn efforts overcome by the power of the whirlpool, the Carthaginian galley inexorably drawn into Charybdis as the current took a firm grip of her stern, dragging the ship ever closer to the centre of the vortex. The cries of terror were beyond any that Atticus had ever heard.

  ‘Septimus!’ Atticus called.

  The centurion approached. He was shaking his head in amazement. ‘By the gods, Atticus, I have never seen such a sight. What might does this sea have, that it can take a ship and devour her?’

  ‘Charybdis has taken one for us,’ Atticus began, ‘the Carthaginian on the lead ship’s starboard flank is heading directly for the whirlpool. They’ll realize the danger so they’ll either break off their pursuit or try to navigate around. Either way they’re no longer a threat. We’re still too far from the mouth of the strait to escape the last ship. She’ll run us down, knowing that the rest of the fleet are not far behind. Our only chance is to attack and disable her and then disengage before reinforcements arrive. Once we clear the mouth of the strait we’ll raise sail, using the trade winds sweeping south along the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Aquila can outsail any Carthaginian trireme.’

  Septimus nodded, agreeing with the captain’s logic. He looked back over the stern rail again at the two remaining Carthaginian galleys, picking out the one they would need to attack. Atticus had levelled the odds. Now it was the turn of Septimus and his men to take the fight to the enemy.

  On the foredeck of the Elissar, Gisco watched the scene before him with mounting disbelief. He couldn’t accurately judge the distance between the Sidon and the Roman galley from his position on the portside aft-quarter of the chase, but he knew it had to be close. The oars of the Roman galley had been suddenly raised from the water and before Gisco could question the action they had re-engaged and were once again moving as if nothing had occurred. Then, without warning, the Sidon seemed to buckle and swing wildly to starboard. Even now she continued to spin at incredible speed, her hull breaking up under the intolerable stress. Gisco was staggered by what he saw.

  ‘What sorcery is this?’ the captain beside Gisco muttered aloud. ‘It is the work of Pluto. We must abandon the chase.’

  ‘No!’ Gisco bellowed, the captain’s words allowing him to give vent to his frustration and fear at what he had just witnessed. ‘There will be no withdrawal. Give me attack speed now and signal to the Hermes to continue the pursuit.’

  ‘Yes, Admiral,’ the captain blurted, caught between his fear of the man before him and the unknown forces attacking the Sidon.

  Gisco now fully understood the actions of the Roman trireme, from her erratic and seemingly suicidal course to her inexplicably raising oars, and the thought of how they had played him for a fool fuelled the anger within him. Armed with the knowledge that the Roman ship had passed through these waters at attack speed, he gambled that the way ahead was clear, driven now by a desire for revenge.

  Captain Maghreb had watched the fate of the Sidon with equal horror from the aft-deck of the Hermes. The doomed galley was one hundred yards ahead, the sound of snapping timbers as the hull disintegrated mixed with the last cries of her crew as they were consumed.

  ‘All stop!’ Maghreb roared, his own fear consuming him. The oars of the Hermes were raised, the galley instantly losing momentum. Maghreb looked across to the Elissar, expecting to see her oars similarly raised. He could only stare in disbelief as the order to continue the pursuit was signalled from the admiral.

  ‘Steerage speed, lookouts to the foredeck!’ Maghreb roared as he immediately tore his eyes from the Elissar to scan the waters ahead, expecting any moment to see the vortex that would engulf his ship. The galley slowed to two knots, steerage speed, feeling her way through the water as she edged forward, searching for the rim of the maelstrom. Maghreb could only hope that the Hermes could navigate around the whirlpool in time to join the Elissar in full pursuit.

  ‘Come about,’ Atticus ordered, his gaze steady on the approaching Carthaginian galley, her partner now trying to manoeuvre around Charybdis.

  ‘Be ready, Gaius,’ Atticus added, ‘she’ll try to manoeuvre to ram. That’s where her strength lies and our weakness.’

  Gaius nodded, his entire being focused on the enemy galley. The Carthaginian vessel turned three points to starboard in an effort to run diagonally across the Aquila’s bow. Gaius knew that the enemy would try to turn tightly to come at them from the beam, to ram them amidships. He turned the Aquila three points to port to counter the enemy’s move, keeping the bows of both galleys on an intercept course.

  Septimus had assembled his marines on
the main deck, preparing the boarding parties that would sweep over the rails of the Aquila onto the Carthaginian galley. They had separated into two groups. The first group of twenty hastati and twenty principes, new recruits coupled with seasoned soldiers, were moving to station themselves on the foredeck. The second group, the older triarii, were ranged across the main deck, ready to counter any boarding party from the enemy ship. All had discarded their four-foot-long scutum shields for a hoplon. The lighter rounded shield was a Greek design, perfectly adapted to the speed and agility needed for boarding, and the marines had trained hard to overcome their past allegiance to the legions’ standard shield.

  ‘Steady men,’ Septimus said, sensing the aggression coupled with nervous tension in the soldiers assembled at his back. The enemy galley was only one hundred yards away and closing fast.

  The Elissar tore through the waves at eleven knots, every turn of her bow matched and countered by the approaching Roman galley. Gisco had not anticipated the Romans would turn into the fight so soon, expecting his prey to continue their headlong rush for the mouth of the strait in a vain hope of making their escape. The reversal brought instant, instinctive commands as the galley was prepared for immediate battle. The helmsman worked hard to manoeuvre the Elissar into a ramming position, but his skills were evenly matched by those of the Roman helmsman. The Roman galley was now fifty yards away, her bow pointed directly at the Elissar’s. There would be no opportunity to ram. As the bows connected they would be made fast by both crews, each looking to board the other.

  Gisco turned from the approaching galley to look out over the stern rail. The Hermes was skirting the northern rim of the whirlpool, her tentative steps enraging the admiral. He had ordered the galley to join him in the pursuit, their combined strength initially needed to ensure the Romans would not escape. Now the Elissar would face the Romans alone and Gisco could not suppress the blood lust rising within him, the chance to gain some revenge for the loss of one of his galleys. Further behind, the Carthaginian fleet was advancing at battle speed. Once the two galleys engaged, Gisco estimated the fleet would be upon them within fifteen minutes.