Captain of Rome

by John Stack

  Varro looked ahead once more. Eighty yards. He could see individual Carthaginian faces, many contorted in defiance, screaming challenges that were caught and whipped away by the wind. Fifty yards. A flight of arrows shot across from the Carthaginian galleys. Cries of pain and anger split the air. A centurion roared in command and a swarm of spears flew forth from the main deck, striking the Carthaginian force, a hail of carnage on the packed deck. Thirty yards. Varro braced his legs against the blow to come, his hand tightly gripping the hilt of his sword, the power of Rome surrounding him.

  ‘Now!’ Hamilcar roared. ‘All stop! Come full about!’

  The Alissar immediately broke ranks; her speed cut away until her bow was clear of speeding galleys on either side and the helmsman threw the tiller hard over, the Alissar turning away from the line of attack as the order was given for battle speed.

  Hamilcar kept his eyes firmly on the enemy line, less than thirty yards away, visible through the narrow gap the Alissar had left in the line, a gap that no quinquereme could thread at attack speed without striking the oars of the triremes that had flanked the Alissar, a clash that would foil their own and break their speed.

  Seconds later the air was filled with the crack of tortured timber and shattered wood as the two forces collided, the cacophony followed a heartbeat later by the lesser sound of a dozen Roman boarding ramps plunging down, a death grip for every Carthaginian trireme. War cries of anger and hate swept over the Alissar as she came full about, the din of battle now firmly in her wake and Hamilcar turned his back to stare straight ahead into an empty sea. An order rose to his lips, a command to turn once more into the fight, his warrior instincts roaring at him to join his doomed countrymen in the forlorn battle. He swallowed the words, the taste of them foul in his throat. He had sacrificed a dozen ships to make his escape, not to save his life but to save the life of Carthage; to save her fate from lesser men. As a commander the order was his only choice. As a warrior, the order desecrated his very soul.

  ‘Three points to port!’ Atticus shouted. ‘Swing around their flank!’

  Gaius responded immediately, the Aquila maintaining her attack speed even as the other triremes on the right flank slowed their speed and held station, the battle joined in the centre was an obvious mismatch that would soon be over.

  Atticus’s gaze was dragged to the mêlée that was the collided lines but as the Aquila reached, then rounded the southern tip of the line the open waters revealed a sight that caught the attention of all on board.

  ‘Enemy galley on easterly course!’ Corin shouted.

  ‘The quinquereme,’ Atticus muttered, the galley plainly visible a half a mile away.

  Septimus approached him on the aft-deck. ‘What do you make of her?’ he asked.

  ‘The command ship, no doubt about it, centre of the line, the only quinquereme.’ ‘So why is she running?’ the centurion asked.

  Atticus was silent for a moment, then he suddenly turned to Septimus. ‘We have to catch her,’ he said and he turned to the helmsman. ‘Gaius. Intercept course. Lucius!’

  The second-in-command ran across the aft-deck.

  ‘Orders to below. Maintain attack speed. Bring up the reserve rowers.’

  Lucius nodded and was away.

  ‘You want to attack a quinquereme?’ Septimus asked sceptically.

  ‘Why is she running?’ Atticus asked, his eyes darting from Septimus to the enemy galley dead ahead and then to the line of the Aquila’s course. ‘One point to starboard!’ he shouted. He turned back to Septimus.

  ‘Because she faces certain defeat,’ the centurion answered.

  ‘Then why commit to battle in the first place?’ Atticus asked.

  Septimus thought a moment. The Carthaginian’s actions were bizarre. The quinquereme could have turned anytime before now, in fact the whole Carthaginian line could have turned and yet the quinquereme had led them into battle only to flee when every other Punic galley was committed.

  ‘A coward?’ Septimus ventured without conviction.

  Atticus eyebrows raised in question. ‘Have you known many Carthaginian cowards?’

  Septimus shook his head slowly. Then it struck him; ‘By the Gods, Atticus, whoever is commanding that galley has sacrificed the other ships to make his escape.’

  Atticus nodded, ‘Which means it’s someone important.’

  Septimus looked to the quinquereme once more. She was less than four hundred yards away and a half-mile from the line of battle, with no sign of any other pursuit.

  ‘With only thirty men fit for duty, the best we can do is take the aft-deck and hold it until reinforcements arrive. There’s no way we can push the fight to the entire ship.’

  Atticus nodded again. He had surmised as much.

  ‘Then we’ll attack over the stern rail,’ he said, knowing the odds of stopping the quinquereme to be near naught. ‘Maybe we’ll get lucky and take out her rudder,’ he added, knowing only Fortuna could grant him that.

  The Carthaginian galley was now less than three hundred yards ahead, the Aquila coming up on her starboard stern quarter, a course that would put her in the quinquereme’s wake within minutes. Atticus looked to the battle once more. None of the Roman quinqueremes had broken through yet. The Aquila was alone.

  ‘Roman galley still on an intercept course!’

  Hamilcar turned and looked out over the stern rail for the fourth time. The enemy trireme was now directly in the Alissar’s wake two hundred yards behind.

  ‘Shall I increase speed?’ Hamilcar turned to find the captain standing beside him.

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Maintain battle speed. Order the archers to the aft-deck and have fifty men brought aft.’

  The captain saluted and left Hamilcar to look out once more at the Roman galley. He was sorely tempted to increase his pace but the rowers would only be able to maintain attack speed for fifteen minutes. After that they would be spent and the Alissar would be dead in the water and with the battle line only a mile behind, there was still time for a Roman quinquereme to emerge and give chase, a far more deadly foe than a mere trireme. Her ram would be useless against the Alissar, not only because she was a heavier built galley but also because the Alissar was travelling at eight knots away from the line of attack which meant the ram would strike her with a momentum of no more than five or six knots, not even enough to scratch her back. The only vulnerable point on the stern, and Hamilcar’s only concern, was the rudder, but again, with an open seascape before him the Alissar could run a straight course without the rudder long enough to take her out of danger.

  Hamilcar nodded to himself. The odds favoured maintaining battle speed and allowing the Roman to approach. But then, Hamilcar vowed, he would unleash fury on the impertinent trireme and release some measure of the battle lust that he and his crew had been forced to contain.

  ‘Fifty yards,’ Corin yelled.

  ‘Shields up,’ Septimus ordered at the call. ‘Prepare for incoming.’

  Moments later the first arrows struck home, many on a flat trajectory that plunged the arrows deeply into the weathered timbers of the Aquila, others lofted high to fall like deadly rain on the upturned shields of Septimus’s thirty men formed up behind the corvus. Sporadic cries of pain rang out as exposed flesh was pierced by the murderous assault, Septimus registering the fall of one of his men behind him as he grimly stared ahead through a gap in the shield wall, measuring the distance between the converging galleys, now forty yards, now thirty.

  ‘Pila!’ he shouted and the legionaries emerged as one from under their defensive cover, their eight foot long spears held at the ready. The onslaught of Carthaginian arrows intensified, striking down another legionary, then another, their exposed ranks easy prey for the fury of Apollo. Septimus held firm, suppressing the urge to let fly and throw up his shield, his eyes judging the pitch and roll of the Aquila’s deck, waiting for the perfect moment.

  ‘Loose!’ he roared and the legionaries roared with savage revenge as t
hey unleashed their spears. The pila seemed to hang in the air for a heartbeat, suspended over the water immediately behind the Carthaginian aft-deck before crashing down into the massed ranks of the Punici. Cries of pain and death washed over the foredeck of the Aquila as the spears wrought a brutal carnage, the iron shanks tearing through leather, finding the gaps between shields to impale and maim, the force of the deadly fall nailing men to the timber deck.

  Atticus watched and heard the opening blows with a dispassionate stare, his mind totally focused on the aft-deck of the Punic galley, his raised hand making barely discernable gestures that triggered Gaius’s hand on the tiller. All around him and on the main deck the crew of the Aquila continued to work stoically amidst the random fall of arrows, the hand of Pluto ranging over the galley to strike down the ill-fated, each casualty eliciting a shouted order from Lucius for the man to be taken below.

  ‘Ten yards,’ Gaius said aloud, cursing the corvus anew for robbing him of a true line of sight to the enemy rudder. ‘We have her.’

  Atticus nodded but kept his silence, uneasy about the bitter fight that faced Septimus and his men. Minutes before, a hundred yards out, Atticus had felt that the Carthaginian might yet run but he had dismissed the idea almost before it was fully formed, trusting his earlier deduction that the Carthaginians would try and stave off the smaller ship rather than run. That meant a desperate fight awaited Septimus, a fight that would only be relieved when reinforcements arrived.

  ‘Steady, Gaius,’ Atticus said almost to himself, the words allowing him to refocus his thoughts on the attack, the line of the Aquila’s ram and the enemy’s rudder. ‘Steady.’

  ‘Now!’ Hamilcar roared and the deck almost reared beneath him as the helmsman threw the tiller hard over a heartbeat before the Roman galley struck the stern of the Alissar, a manoeuvre that threw the rudder out of the path of the blunt-nosed ram. Hamilcar felt the strike of the ram against the hull through his feet but he smiled savagely, knowing the blow had done little damage and he screamed a war cry in defiance, a shout that was taken up by his men ranged across the aft-deck, a defensive line against the storm to come.

  A flurry of grappling hooks flew across the narrow gap between the galleys, the men in the front line ignoring them, their eyes instead locked on the sight of the massive Roman boarding ramp that towered over the foredeck of the smaller enemy galley. A Roman command was heard above the roar of battle and a moment later the ramp began to fall, slowly at first as if a mighty hand was staying its course but then accelerating suddenly, the weight of its thirty-six foot length an unstoppable force and the front line waivered as the threefoot-long spike stabbed down into the deck.

  Hamilcar screamed the order to advance even as he watched a massive centurion charge up the slope of the ramp, the unequal heights of the two galleys doing little to slow the momentum of the Roman legionaries. The Carthaginians surged to the ramp and the two forces collided at the head, the centurion and then many more legionaries punching into the Carthaginian line with their massive shields to create a bridgehead on the Punic aft-deck. Hamilcar remained still, his crew rushing past him as he stood immobile, his steady gaze absorbing the Roman attack, the simple brilliance of the ramp and the savage courage of the legionaries. He stepped back, briefly looking over his shoulder, searching for the captain, finding him instantly at the head of the aft-deck, his eyes locked on Hamilcar. The Carthaginian commander smiled again as he turned once more to the mêlée only yards away. The Romans had a dozen men across, now fifteen, their bridgehead expanding, the Carthaginian defence descending into a vicious futile assault against an ever-advancing Roman wall of shields. Now they were committed. Hamilcar turned. The captain was staring at him as before. Hamilcar shouted the order, knowing his voice would not be heard above the noise of battle but also knowing the captain was waiting for this one command and Hamilcar wanted to roar out the death knell for the Roman legionaries.

  ‘Attack speed!’

  Atticus was thrown to the deck as the Aquila suddenly jerked forward, his instincts causing him to immediately look to the stern rail, expecting to see an enemy galley rammed into his own.

  ‘By the gods,’ he heard Gaius shout and he looked to the helmsman, the colour drained from his face as he stood transfixed. ‘She’s re-engaged her oars!’

  Atticus could hardly comprehend Gaius’s words and he spun around, looking once more to the quinquereme, the fury on her aft-deck now forgotten as he stared at her oars.

  The Aquila jerked forward again, this time coming up to speed as the initial inertia of the seventy-ton hull was overcome and within seconds she was accelerating even as her oars remained raised.

  ‘Lucius!’ Atticus roared, running forward to the main deck. ‘Attack speed now!’

  From the corner of his eye he saw the second-in-command run to the slave-deck hatchway, saw him mouth the shouted command. Atticus swept aside his fears that the Aquila’s oars would not hit the water in unison. It was a tricky manoeuvre, beginning an oar-stroke while the ship was moving. One oar out of sequence and a whole section could foul, knocking the galley off course, but it had to be done. The Aquila had to get up to speed under her own power.

  Atticus swept men up as he ran towards the corvus, the crew instantly drawing their swords, ready to follow their captain into the maelstrom. He fanned them out across the base of the corvus, readying them to defend the Aquila should the Carthaginians counter-attack. They roared in answer to his command, but their shout was cut short as the deck once more shuddered beneath them and for the first time Atticus heard the scream of tortured wood. He looked to the mounting pole of the corvus, almost seeing the deflection of the six-inch diameter spar as the stress of maintaining the link between the two galleys took its toll. The Aquila bucked and shuddered again and a grappling rope snapped cleanly with a loud retort, the thick hemp rope whipping back, striking the hoplon shield of one of the crew, knocking him to the deck.

  ‘Sweet merciful…’ Atticus muttered and he felt the icy hand of panic slide up his spine as he looked across to the legionaries. The two galleys were going to break apart, the unequal stresses too great, the different oar stroke and sequence creating unequal acceleration even if the speeds were equal. The corvus was strong enough to carry men into battle, strong enough even to hold a trireme stationary in the water, but it was never designed to hold back a galley weighing over a hundred tons and travelling at twelve knots. With a realisation that struck Atticus to the core he saw that the ramp was going to fail and when it did, any Roman left on the Carthaginian galley would be slaughtered without mercy or remorse.

  ‘Steady the line!’ Septimus ordered and his men responded with a roar of affirmation, a war cry mixed with the firm resolution that not one step back would be taken. Septimus leaned into his shield once more, angling his body against the press of the enemy, his sword striking out through the gap to return with fresh blood, the deck beneath his sandaled feet already running red with only his hobnails giving him purchase. The noise around him was deafening, cries of pain and anger, of death and fury unleashed, of hatred driven to near frenzy as men hacked at each other with sword and shield. To his left he could hear Drusus ordering the line to hold firm and he nodded to himself, confident that his optio would not allow the line to fail.

  The Carthaginian before his shield fell and Septimus was given a brief respite as he held ready for another assault. His mind triggered a forgotten thought, a minutes-old memory of the deck moving suddenly beneath him, a sensation he had felt but had ignored in the first desperate moments of the attack. Now he sensed that movement again, as if the quinquereme was moving through the water and not firmly impaled and held fast by the Aquila. He was tempted to look to his side, to confirm his suspicion, but he held fast, his warrior’s instinct warning him to stay focused and as if in confirmation an axe hammered against his shield, knocking it back against his shoulder. Septimus’s sword arm reacted before conscious thought, striking forward as he pushed back his shie
ld, his blade striking iron as the Carthaginian parried the blow. He reversed the strike and thrust again, keeping his shield high and in formation, continuing his attack as the line remained steady.

  ‘Baro,’ Atticus shouted, drawing his own sword for the first time, ‘tell Lucius I want ramming speed now!’

  Another grappling line shot apart as Baro ran off.

  ‘You and you,’ Atticus indicated. Two crewmen stepped forward. ‘Go aft and bring up more hooks and lines! The rest of you hold firm here.’

  Atticus turned and ran up the corvus, his eyes searching the backs of the Roman legionaries, immediately spotting Septimus in the centre. The ramp suddenly bucked beneath him and he fell to his knees, instinctively stretching out his free hand to break his fall. He cursed loudly and put his weight on to his hand to push himself up but he recoiled instantly, the timber planking moving beneath his palm and for a second time he felt panic. The corvus was failing fast.

  Atticus took off at a run again and gained the Carthaginian aft-deck within a second. He jumped off the corvus and immediately looked down at the head of the ramp. The iron spike was still embedded in the deck, however it was now preceded by a two foot long tear, the origin of the gash marking where the corvus had first struck. Atticus spun around, looking for Septimus again. The deck was strewn with the bodies of a dozen Carthaginian slain, their open wounds still spilling blood onto the deck, their lifeless features still screaming out the final defiance and rage that had marked the end of their existence. A half-dozen red-cloaked legionaries lay amongst them; at least two of them were still alive, but their wounds were grievous.