Captain of Rome

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Marcus asked.

‘To the line,’ Septimus replied automatically, not understanding the question.

‘The hell you are!’ Marcus said. ‘This is not your fight.’

‘But…’ Septimus began but Marcus cut him short.

‘You’re a marine Centurion, Septimus. Your duty lies with your galley and your men.’

Septimus made to protest again but Marcus ignored him, shouting over his shoulder, ‘Signifier of the IV!’

Within seconds the standard bearer of the IV maniple was at their side.

‘Septimus,’ Marcus began, ‘I need you to do me a favour.’

‘Another one?’ Septimus smiled, already realising what Marcus was going to ask.

‘Take my hastati from the IV onto the Aquila and see them safely away.’

Septimus nodded, assuming the familiar mantle he had carried in the Ninth over two years before.

‘Yes, Centurion,’ Septimus replied, saluting the older man, his friend and former mentor.

Marcus punched Septimus’s breastplate twice, his expression friendly. He turned without another word and strode off towards the defensive line, the more experienced men of his maniple already deploying under the optio of the IV. Septimus watched him until he was lost in the crush of men crowded along the docks. Only then did he lower his salute.

Septimus spun around to find the Signifier standing firm, the hastati of the IV finding their way unerringly to the standard as ranks were formed all along the dock. Septimus noticed there were no more than twenty hastati remaining, less than half their original number, their comrades lost in the initial charge and subsequent street fighting.

‘Men of the IV, on me!’ Septimus shouted as he advanced towards the water’s edge, his eyes sweeping the inner harbour for the Aquila as the Roman galleys converged. ‘There!’ Atticus said, his outstretched hand pointing out the standard of the IV maniple. ‘Do you see it, Gaius?’

‘Yes, Captain,’ the helmsman replied and adjusted the Aquila’s course. Within a minute the galley was lined up with dock directly opposite the standard of Septimus’s old maniple where Atticus hoped to find his friend.

‘Steerage speed!’ the captain shouted, slowing the galley to two knots as Gaius brought the hull perpendicular to the dock.

‘All stop!’

The blades of two hundred oars were dropped into the water, creating a drag that stopped the Aquila within a halfship length. The order was given to raise oars as the ram gently nudged the dock and the corvus was lowered. To the left and right another six galleys followed suit, their exposed sterns protected by a screen of three more Roman galleys that kept a constant vigil against the remaining Carthaginian galleys milling around the harbour, the confluence of Roman ships with their deadly corvi keeping them at bay for the moment.

Atticus walked down the main deck, his eyes never leaving the head of the corvus, trying to discern the familiar sight of his friend amongst the throng of battle weary soldiers. He spotted him almost immediately and stood directly in his path. As Septimus approached he held his hand out, the centurion smiling in recognition. They shook hands, legionary style, with hands gripping forearms. Atticus slapped Septimus on the shoulder, the smile never leaving his face. He hadn’t seen his friend since Mylae.

‘Welcome home,’ Atticus said, as the legionaries pushed around them, the main deck becoming ever more crowded.

Septimus nodded, his gaze taking in every detail of the galley he had served on for over a year, the rise and fall of the deck beneath his feet unfamiliar after so many months on land. He nodded. ‘It’s good to be back,’ he replied.

The smile disappeared from his face as he looked over Atticus’s shoulder to the carnage of the outer harbour.

‘What are our chances?’ he asked.

‘We’ll see,’ Atticus replied. ‘What are the Legate’s plans?’

‘He’s going to break out east with the principes and triarii.’

Atticus nodded. He looked over his shoulder and counted the Roman galleys within sight. Enough to take the hastati but no more. The rest of the Ninth would be left to Fortuna’s whim.

The Aquila pushed off minutes later, her full complement now supplemented by an additional eighty legionaries from the Ninth legion. The other Roman galleys unconsciously formed on the flanks of the Aquila as they turned from the inner harbour, their bows re-creating an arrow-head formation. There were near twenty in total and Gaius set their course for the centre of the line in the outer harbour, a course that would hopefully shatter the line and allow the greatest number of Roman galleys to escape. On their flanks Atticus noticed the loose Carthaginian galleys that had advanced to the inner harbour coming back up to attack speed, hoping to pick off individual ships from the edges of the formation. He unconsciously gripped the side rail, his grip tightening until the knuckles showed white, his mind calculating the speed and course of every galley, friend and foe. They weren’t all going to make it.

Hamilcar reined in his horse as he reached the shoreline, his gaze sweeping across the entire harbour. For a brief second his expression turned to one of puzzlement. Then it slowly transformed into frustration and then into twisted anger. There were no more than forty Carthaginian galleys in the harbour, a number not much more than the Romans, the battle a nearly even contest instead of the overwhelming blow Hamilcar had planned. Where in Anath’s name was the rest of the fleet? When he had left Panormus, the Carthaginians’ main port on the northern coast of Sicily, over two weeks before, he had left an assembled fleet of one hundred galleys, each one fully manned and ready to sail, with orders to lay off Thermae in ambush.

Now only a fraction of that force was present and what was worse was that most were still following his original orders, forming a battle line to seal the harbour without fully engaging. That tactic was devised for a force of one hundred galleys; a force Hamilcar had been sure would coerce the trapped Romans into surrendering without a fight, but with the fleets more evenly balanced in numbers Hamilcar could see that the Romans were about to attempt to punch through the line.

Hamilcar noticed that some of his captains had had the intelligence to disregard his previous orders in light of the obvious change in the tactical situation but their attacks were uncoordinated and individual, their efforts insufficient to trigger the crushing defeat Hamilcar had wanted to inflict on the Romans. They were attacking on the flanks, picking off the exposed enemy galleys but the bulk of the Roman fleet continued without check, bearing down on the too shallow Carthaginian line.

Hamilcar’s mount bucked wildly in fright beneath him and for the first time he realised he was screaming at the top of his lungs, his rage boiling over into a visceral challenge against the enemy that was going to escape annihilation and the unknown forces that had ruined his plan.

An almighty crack filled the air as a Carthaginian ram, driven by an eighty ton hull, smashed into the exposed timbers of a Roman galley on the flank of the arrow formation, the strike accompanied by a demonic cheer from the Punici. The momentum of the blow pushed the stricken ship up onto the cutwater of the Punic galley and the crowded deck of the Roman galley tilted violently, throwing many of the evacuated legionaries into the churning waters of the harbour, their armour dragging them instantly below the waves. Atticus cursed as he witnessed the sight but he quickly returned his gaze to the waters ahead, watching as the Carthaginian line prepared to receive the full punch of the Roman attempt to break through.

‘Aspect change, dead ahead!’ Corin roared from the masthead and Atticus sought the Punic galley that had turned into their course.

‘One point to starboard!’ he commanded and Gaius responded with an alacrity that bore testament to the intuitive bond between the captain and helmsman.

‘Punic galley on intercept course!’ Corin shouted and Atticus imperceptibly nodded his head, the Carthaginian’s course already obvious to all on the aft-deck.

‘Prepare to sweep to port!’ Atticus ordered.

Lucius rushed forward to the head of the gangway that led to the slave deck below, instantly relaying the captain’s order to the drum master. He stayed on station in that position, looking over his shoulder to Atticus, his entire attention now focused on the captain, his trust in the younger man absolute.

‘Septimus, prepare to deploy a shield wall, starboard side!’

The centurion arranged his men just shy of the starboard rail, their shields ready to overlap to form a protective barrier against the imminent hail of incoming missiles.

Atticus moved to beside Gaius as the helmsman lined up the Aquila’s hull, the finely balanced one hundred and thirty foot keel reacting to the smallest of touches. For a brief second he watched Gaius work, watching him weave the chimera that lulled the Carthaginians into thinking the Roman galley was committed to a frontal assault.

At eleven knots the Aquila closed the final hundred yards in seconds, the drum beat controlling her speed never changing as Lucius ordered the one hundred slaves of the starboard side to prepare to withdraw. They acknowledged the order without breaking stride, their bodies collectively tensing in anticipation of the command to follow, their minds long ago conditioned by the whip to follow commands blindly and without hesitation.

At twenty yards distance the Carthaginians screamed in belligerence, their ranks massed on the foredeck, ready to receive and repel the Roman legionaries. Atticus felt Gaius tense in expectation and he roared the order without conscious thought.

‘Withdraw!’

The command crew moved almost simultaneously, Gaius sidestepping the Aquila to port as Lucius relayed the order below decks while Septimus deployed his ranks to the starboard rail. Within three strokes the slaves raised oars and hand-over-hand withdrew them until only the blades of the oars were exposed outside the hull.

Gaius leaned into the tiller as he re-righted the Aquila’s course, bringing her back to a line parallel to the Carthaginian galley, not ten feet from the hull. Punic cries of alarm and rage filled the air as the cutwater of the Aquila struck the forward extended oars of the Carthaginian galley, the fifteen foot pine oars snapping against the relentless seventy-ton hull, the screams of the slaves manning the oars drowning out all sound save the crack of shattered wood. Many of the Carthaginians reacted instantly to the reversal of fortune, lifelong battle instincts dictating their response as they released flights of arrows across a flat trajectory to the Roman galley, their volleys made impotent by the wall of legionaries’ shields.

‘Re-engage oars!’ Atticus shouted as the Aquila cleared the hull of the Carthaginian galley.

The starboard oars were extended once more and the Aquila’s speed of eleven knots took her out of effective arrow range within seconds, the crew of the now disabled Punic ship left to scream curses across the widening gap. Atticus ignored the shouts and turned his full attention to the formation behind him, watching them as they bunched together to breach the gap the Aquila had created and they poured through the line.

A spontaneous cheer erupted from many of the young hastati on the deck of the Aquila as the galley breached the confines of the harbour and struck out into the open sea. It was a cheer that was not repeated by the experienced men of the galley, Atticus and Septimus amongst them as they stood together on the aft-deck. Atticus’s gaze was locked on a forlorn Roman galley, the Opis, still fighting in the midst of hell in the outer harbour. She had been cut off from the formation and the Carthaginians were turning on her like a pack of hyenas, unleashing their fury at the escape of so many of the Roman galleys by slaughtering the few who remained, the desperate cries of the Romans diminishing as the last of them fell under Phoenician swords. Septimus was looking beyond the naval battle to the docks and thought of the Ninth legion that had long been his home and family, a bond that had been reawakened over the past three months. Their breakout would be desperation itself, a knife edge existence between retreat and rout for the near three thousand men that remained and Septimus could not bring himself to believe that more than a third would see Brolium again.

‘Raise sail, withdraw oars!’ Atticus commanded, finally turning his back on Thermae. The order was repeated on the seventeen Roman galleys sailing in the Aquila’s wake, the remnants of a shattered fleet. The last of the adrenaline in Atticus’s blood began to dissipate and he suddenly felt cold and exhausted, weary to his soul. Three months before the Classis Romanus had swept the sea clear of the enemy, a great victory that made all believe, even Atticus, that the new Roman fleet had reversed and destroyed the three hundred year old superiority of the Punic fleet with one fell swoop. It was a belief born from the confidence of fools and Atticus felt the bile of shame rise in his throat at the thought of his stupidity. They had not destroyed the behemoth, they had merely wounded it, and now the beast had reared its head in vengeance, a brutal retaliation that ran the waters of Thermae red with Roman blood.