reputation as a great warrior, you must support it constantly. I
reputation as a great warrior, you must support it constantly. I
could no more sit in the acropolis while the men raided than I
could abstain from eating.
The city was wel appointed with regard to armour, and Lord
Histiaeus gave me a bel corslet and a fine Cretan helmet with a
magnificent horsehair plume. It was a bit like living in the Iliad. I
took my marines, and Philocrates the Blasphemer, who had
settled into the life of piracy like a veteran. I got him arms as
wel, a ful panoply.
‘You look like Ares come to life,’ I said to him, when he was
dressed in bronze.
‘Ares is a myth to frighten children,’ he said.
‘I see that a storm at sea and a life of war is not enough to
restore your respect for the gods,’ I said.
He shrugged. ‘You can’t respect what ain’t there.’
I stood back a little and regarded him. There was something
frightening about him. He ignored portents, laughed at talismans
and caled the gods by foul names. At first only the Iberians
would eat with him, but as he continued to blaspheme and the
skies never swalowed him up, other men began to accept him.
That said, I have to say that he had changed. I couldn’t put my
finger on why, but he explained it himself later, as you’l hear, if
you come back for more of this story tomorrow.
At any rate, sixty of us went out of the postern gate nearest
the harbour. It was pelting down with rain – we slipped on the
mud, and I blessed my good Boeotian boots even as the other
men cursed their open sandals. The ground in front of the wals
had been churned to a froth by the passage of thousands of men,
had been churned to a froth by the passage of thousands of men,
slaves and soldiers, and both sides dumped their waste and filth
into that no-man’s-land. It was foul.
You’d think that after a hundred of these raids, the Persians
would have set a watch, but of al their contingents, only the
Aegyptians kept a regular guard. Most of their crack troops
were cavalrymen who disdained such rigorous pastimes as guard
duty, and who am I to comment? I never knew a Greek who
was wiling to stand a night watch.
We crossed the mud and the ordure in the lashing rain, and
then we went over the fresh brush they’d piled in lieu of a wal
around their camp. No hope of lighting a fire on this night, but we
had a different goal in mind.
We weren’t after Artaphernes. If he’d been at the siege, he
might have had Briseis, and my approach would have been very
different. Indeed, since I’m trying to tel the whole truth here, I’l
add that I didn’t feel any particular commitment to the rebels.
They weren’t Plataeans, for instance. I was loyal enough to
Miltiades, but you’l note that I wasn’t criss-crossing the seas
looking for him. Nor was I sailing up and down looking for the
rebel fleet to offer my services. Mind you, once I was trapped in
Miletus, my options were limited. But I wasn’t an idealist. I was
a Plataean, and I was Briseis’s lover – or rather, the same, but in
the other order.
But neither the satrap nor his new wife was at the siege that
autumn. Datis was Artaphernes’ lieutenant, and our aim was to
kil him. His great red and purple tent showed clearly across the
lines by day, and we’d worked out a couple of sea-marks –
lines by day, and we’d worked out a couple of sea-marks –
torches mounted at two different heights in the town – to guide
us to his tent. He was a relative of the Great King – Artaphernes
was one of the king’s many brothers, and this Datis was a
cousin, or some such, and a famous warrior, and the rumours
were that when he took Miletus, he’d be sent with a great fleet
against Chios and Lesbos – and perhaps Athens. Or so men
said.
No one expected us to succeed in kiling him, but it was this
sort of constant pressure that kept the besiegers on edge and
encouraged them to pack it up for the winter and head home.
We crept through the dark, soaked to the skin, squelching in
mud, turning frequently to get our line of approach from the
torches on the wals, and we crept forward, cursed by men in the
tents whose ropes we bumped – little knowing, of course, that
we were mortal foes. I wondered if this was what Odysseus had
felt when he left the Trojan horse to sneak into the town of Troy.
The Iliad is very real at times – but no one ever seems to be wet
or cold, or have the flux. I find that these three are the proper
children of Ares, not Havoc and Panic and whatever else the
poets ascribe. Who ever had a war without wet and cold?
We were in the middle of the column, so we had no idea
what – or who – alarmed the camp, but suddenly we were
discovered. It was raining so hard that no one could light a torch,
and as soon as the enemy came out of their tents, they lost al
sense of the situation.
Our men kiled the first to come close to them, then scattered.
That’s what we’d planned. The Milesians simply vanished. They
had raided the camp before and knew it wel enough. My
marines were not so lucky, and in the dark we folowed the
wrong men. We thought we were folowing Milesians and we
ended up in the horse lines, where a dozen conscientious Persian
troopers had run to protect their mounts. Our men started
fighting them with no cue from me. My marines were armoured
and the Persians were unarmed, and they died – taking two of
my men with them. Persians are brave.
‘Cut the halters and undo the hobbles,’ I ordered. My
survivors spread out and caused chaos on the horse lines, ripping
pickets out of the ground. I ran to the top of a low hil and
looked back at the city, and only then did I realize that we had
the whole width of the enemy camp between us.
More immediately, men were boiling out of the camp, backlit
by the lights on the city wal. Persians love their horses. My ten
men weren’t going to last a minute against a regiment of Persian
cavalrymen.
I thought of stealing horses and heading inland, but that sort
of thing only works in epics. In real life, your enemies have more
horses and native guides, and they ride you down. Besides, my
men were sailors in armour, not cavalrymen. Most of them had
probably never forked a horse.
I was out of ideas, but Poseidon stood by us. Horses
scattered in every direction, and I didn’t have to be Odysseus to
reckon that we could escape with the herd. A few of us
mounted, and others simply clung to manes, even tails – and we
mounted, and others simply clung to manes, even tails – and we
flowed with the horses, moving west and north, back towards
the city. I got mounted, lost my bearings and my companions,
and spent a watch among the rocks south of the city, where my
horse left me.
The gods help those who help themselves, or so I
’ve heard it
said, and while I lay in the rocks watching the city and the force
of Persian archers between me and the wals, cursing my fate, I
realized that it was a six-stade walk along the ridge of rock to
the beach opposite Tyrtarus. And not a sentry on the way.
I took the time to poke along the ridge of rock. Every piece
of waste ground has trails, if you know where to look – goats
make them, and shepherds, and boys and girls courting or
playing at being heroes. The moon came up late and the rain
ceased, and I walked to the beach opposite Lade, stripped to
my skin and swam to the huls opposite – realy just a few horse-
lengths, wel less than a stade. I rose up, dripping, by the black
huls, close enough to the enemy camp to hear the snores of
Archilogos’s oarsmen, or so I reckoned. Then I swam back and
picked my way among the rocks. As I had expected, the
Persians had gone back to bed. I crawled through the mud and
shit to the wals of the town, and wasted another half an hour
persuading the sentry to let me climb the wal without gutting me.
Oh, the romance of siege warfare!
I was the last man back from the raid, and my sword had not
left its scabbard. There were men in the upper city who were of
a mind to laugh at me. I let them laugh. I was no longer a hot-
blooded boy, and I didn’t need a blood feud in the town. I
blooded boy, and I didn’t need a blood feud in the town. I
wanted to take my gold and go, although I was keen to show
Istes what I was made of. He’d kiled three Persians, and
brought in their bows and arrows as proof.
I slept wel enough. In the morning I ate honeyed almonds in
the upper city and took a long bath to kil the smel of the mud.
Histiaeus and Istes joined me.
‘Your men accomplished a miracle,’ he said. ‘Not a slave is
working on the siege mound today. They’re al out searching for
the horses.’ He smiled grimly. ‘We didn’t get Datis, but we hurt
them – a deserter says we kiled fifteen Persians and some
others.’
I nodded. None of this interested me much. This war of tiny
increments was not something I could realy appreciate. To me,
the city looked doomed, and I wanted out before I was sold into
slavery again.
‘Wil you raid again tonight?’ I asked.
He shook his head. Even he – the best-fed warrior in the city
– had circles under his eyes like shield bags, and the lines on his
face were as deep as new-ploughed furrows. ‘No,’ he said.
‘We’ve been out two nights in a row. We can’t keep it up. The
fighters are exhausted. The real fighters – the men of worth.’ His
eyes flicked to Istes, who also looked like a man at the edge of
exhaustion.
‘I’m leaving tonight,’ I said.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t recommend that,’ he said. ‘Mind
you, if you stay much longer, I’l be seling you your grain.’
‘I’d appreciate a dozen of your archers to help me get clear,’
‘I’d appreciate a dozen of your archers to help me get clear,’
I said. ‘I’d bring them back on my next trip.’
‘You plan to shoot your way out?’ Istes asked. ‘Archers are
our most valuable troops.’ He shrugged. ‘You are the best friend
this city has made in many months – but the loss of ten archers
would be a blow.’
‘I understand. But I need the archers for my diversion, and
I’l leave you a trireme as surety – the Phoenician I took on my
way in.’ I pointed to the hul. ‘On a dark night – you might use
her to get some people out.’
He shook his head in puzzlement. ‘Why leave a ship?’ he
asked.
I grunted. I didn’t want to tel him. As in any siege, the town
was riddled with deserters, traitors and double agents, I had no
doubt. ‘We’l be away in the dark of the moon,’ I said.
‘Poseidon bless you, then,’ the tyrant said. But his eyes
flicked to his brother, and something passed between them that I
didn’t like.
Oh, I was eager to be gone.
I slept most of the day and mustered al my men – marines,
oarsmen, deck crews – at dusk. I put my plan to them as the sun
vanished into clouds, and enough men volunteered to give me
hope. I wish I could say that they al volunteered, but a week on
half rations in a doomed city is enough to sap anyone’s morale.
I took my party out of the harbour saly port when the rain
started. We made the rocks south of town in the end, although I
had an anxious time finding them in the dark. It is always easier
to go to a town than away from it.
We were soaked through and shivering by the time we made
the rocks, and then we crept along, spear-butts sounding like
avalanches as they scraped the stone. Philocrates cursed
steadily. When we were on the beach opposite Lade, we
stripped and swam, clinging to our spears as best we could.
We missed our way – the darkness was deep and there was
no moon. Let me just say that swimming in the dark – no sight of
anything, cold through, so that you shiver, clinging to your
weapons – is perhaps the ultimate test of the warrior. Men
turned back. And who am I to blame them?
We ended up on the rocks east of the ships, and there was
nothing for it but to crawl. I’d explained this part, but the
execution was much harder than I’d anticipated. Try crawling on
a rainy night, naked but for a wet chlamys, and keeping a spear
with you, across broken ground thick with brush.
Hah! We sounded like a herd of cattle. But fools that we
were, and inept, the enemy were as bad or worse.
I made the most noise as I was wearing Histiaeus’s gift, the
bronze cuirass. I wore it swimming, and it wasn’t bad, but when
I crawled across rocks it was loud and the flare around the hips
caught on everything.
That was one of the longest, darkest hours of my life. I had
not reckoned on losing my way again – we only had a stade of
open ground to cross – but I did. In the end, I had to rise to my
feet, stumbling like a drunkard, and turn slowly – in ful view of
feet, stumbling like a drunkard, and turn slowly – in ful view of
the enemy sentries, if there had been any – to realize that I had
crawled right past the enemy encampment.
Too late to correct my course. I was wel south of my target,
but I could see the black huls of their triremes just to the left,
shiny in the darkness. I had at least a dozen men with me – men
who had chosen to folow me even when their sense said they’d
gone wrong – and now we crept across the dunes, then clattered
across the tongue of rock that separated the mudflat from the sea
until we were crouched by the ships.
Most of the men had packets of oiled cloth and pitch, or even
bitumen – there was plenty of it in Miletus – and we built a pile
of the stuff under one hul.
Although there was no moon, the rain abated while we
crouched there. The camp had fires – most
ly coals – and several
Iberians crept between the boatsails erected as tents and lit their
torches at the fires. By now there were thirty or forty of my men
among the huls of their ships, and we al caled ‘Alarm! Alarm!’
in Greek for al we were worth. Our Iberians ran through the
camp with lit torches before thrusting them into our prebuilt pyre.
And then chaos came.
The fire roared up in the time it would take a man to run the
stade – from a few flickers of flame to a conflagration twice the
height of a man’s head and as loud as a horse race. The ship
caught immediately – huls coated in pitch are an invitation to
flame, even in the rain. My sailors ran back and forth, feeding
sails and oars into the inferno, and then throwing the lit wreckage
into other huls.
into other huls.
Men came out of the tents, and we kiled them. As we were
the ones caling the alarm, they kept on coming to us for many
minutes, unarmed or with buckets to put out the fire, and we put
them down.
By then we had three ships alight, and my two were out in the
channel, already running free while the archers on their decks
shot fire arrows into the black huls. A fire arrow is a feeble
thing, and none of them caught, but it provided further
distraction. The enemy was misled – again – into believing that
the fire arrows were the cause of the fires. It took them a long
time to realize that we were in amongst them.
I had no idea how many men I had under command, or how
much damage we’d done, but I knew that it was time to go. I
had a horn – the gift of Istes – and I ran clear of the flame, the
men closest to me folowing, and I stopped in the dark to sound
the horn, but the only sound I made was the bleat of an old ewe
looking for her last lamb.
‘Give me that,’ Philocrates said, and he took it and blew a
mighty blast. There was the sound of running feet, and we
braced ourselves – we had no shields, and we were going to be
reaped like ripe grain if the enemy had a phalanx to set against
us.
But it was Idomeneus, laughing like a hyena, with fifty of our
sailors and marines on his heels. Towards the back of his rout,
there was fighting, but so far our enemies were disorganized.
‘Get them into the ship!’ I caled – because the Storm Cutter
was coming ashore for us.
Marathon Page 13
