The Wooden Walls of Thermopylae Read online

  Then they were close enough for us to see their faces and the first arrows whizzed overhead. I didn’t need to say anything to our Scythian bowmen; they knew what to do, they’d played before. Then it was our turn; I looked at the marines in the prow and stern and we pulled down our helmets. A last glance at friends before disappearing into the solitary world of limited vision and loneliness that a helmet brings.

  Cimon looked excited; Aeschylus showed no emotion at all. We tried to brace ourselves as best we could against the roll of the ship as we formed a small protective shield wall round Ariston and Themistocles, sitting in the two chairs from where they’d attempt to control the ship. Though my slits of vision I saw Persian triremes speeding across the water at us. There were plenty of them moving fast while we had to maintain our slow holding pattern.

  This was the first sea fight where we’d not been able to use our prime weapon: speed. At first their speed worked against them as instead of hitting us together in force they made contact in ones and twos. Our numbers counted and they lost ships.

  But, as the rest pressed behind them, the pressure on our formation at the points of engagement pushed us into each other and out of formation. We were being squeezed. I sensed this rather than saw it; all I saw was what was right in front of me and that was a space of open water between The Athene Nike and the nearest Persian: no one engaged us. But we were scraping against other Greek ships. I heard Ariston shout,

  “S’no fucking good, can’t maintain this; we have to break formation.”

  There wasn’t a response but Themistocles must have understood what he meant, anyone with eyes could see that we were being pressed into a huddle of Greek ships. Much longer and we’d be immobile and defenceless waiting for the superior Persian numbers to swarm across our decks from one trireme to the next. We waited in agony for a command from the only man who could give it.

  Then Themistocles’s voice.

  “Do it. Break formation.”

  The boat began to pitch, we stumbled into each other for support, Theodorus was calling a different stroke, Lysias was shouting to the nearest Greek triremes.

  “Break the circle, take them one on one.”

  For those of us with some space it wasn’t too difficult but I’d have hated to be on board one of the Greek triremes that was engaged and tangled up with an enemy. Our speed increased. I heard Ariston shout,

  “Ramming speed.”

  We seemed to fly across the water; turning my neck to look straight ahead I saw a Persian trireme side on to us trying to shift as quick as it could. I remembered to shout a command to brace and then we hit with a terrible noise of breaking timber. I was flung across the deck with the impact so hardly noticed our back stroke as we withdrew and the terrible bronze ram tore itself back out of the guts of the crippled Persian.

  We’d hit her on the downroll, just below the waterline near the stern. A fatal blow and the sea was rushing in to the jagged gape in her side. She went down at once, dragged from the stern and the startled crew, who minutes before were safely free from the combat, were dragged screaming down with her.

  I stumbled to my feet to reorganise the fighting men, one stayed prone on the deck, head at an awkward angle, neck broken. The sea was filled with ships in the bloody disorder of a series of running fights. Now it was the superior number of the Persians that disadvantaged them as we moved from compression to space and they fell back onto each other. Chaos, how the Gods love it.

  In their panic they did more harm to each other than we did to them, it’s like that fighting at sea: in an instant everything can change. We stood off picking our targets amongst the disorganised enemy, any ship limping and isolated we went for. Couldn’t do as much damage as we wanted: we kept getting in each other’s way. The only other damage the Athene Nike managed to inflict was on a crippled Persian pentecontor already engaged at the bow by one of our unreliable Corinthian allies.

  We ghosted up onto its stern. The trierarch was standing by his seat shouting orders to his men in the prow, who were struggling to repel borders while his helmsman and rowing master were trying to disengage their ship. I gave the orders for throwing spears and we spitted the three of them; then our archers poured in their shafts. At this range it was murder. The light was fading and both sides were happy to disengage but we came away the happier: we’d been lucky.

  I had trouble getting my fighting gear off because of damage to my right shoulder. I only noticed it after the fighting had ended. That night, camped up on the beach, a fast boat brought a message from Leonidas. The Persians had attacked and been repelled, so both the army and the fleet could fight again the next day knowing their rear was protected.

  Next day after a poor night’s sleep disturbed by the cries of the wounded and dying we were back in the ships early enough to watch the sun rise from the deck. My right shoulder was a nasty mix of purple and livid yellow; I’d not be throwing any spears, that’s for sure. We went for the same tactics; bring them onto us then when they fouled each other because of their numbers go for them. The only way to learn how to fight at sea is by doing it and we were learning quickly.

  The day followed a similar pattern but the fighting started earlier and by noon the sea between Artemisium and Aphetai was filled with skirmishing ships. Any battle plan only lasts until the moment of the first engagement, but Themistocles was quick to pick up what was possible to co- ordinate from the deck of a trireme. He kept the Athene Nike towards the rear of the Athenian contingent so we didn’t engage, which for me was a relief as I doubted my ability to wield a sword in my right hand.

  From this position Themistocles attempted to direct the actions of as much of the fleet as he could. As the light began to fade, both sides again disengaged and returned to base claiming victory. But it was more of a victory for us as we’d taken on the full might of the Persian fleet for two days and lost fewer ships. As Themistocles said that night after we dragged the ship up onto the beach,

  “Our ships are quicker to break formation than theirs. If only we could lure them into a position where we want them, where they have to come at us. Then I think we could force them into an engagement where there was no possibility of retreat, where we could destroy them.”

  But that was the last bit of optimistic thinking we enjoyed that night. When Lysias came back to our campfire from the officers’ meeting, he was glum-faced.

  “The admirals think we can only fight like this one more day: they can field fresh ships from their reserves, we’ve already committed all ours.”

  He was right, and anyway triremes aren’t built to withstand continuous days of fighting. They soon get the stuffing knocked out of them. We knew this from the state of the Athene Nike, which was still taking on water from the damage done during our ramming action the day before. But we could tell from his expression that wasn’t the only bad news. This was confirmed when Cimon asked him,

  “But what about the Spartans? They’re depending on us to secure their flank.”

  Lysias didn’t answer, just gazed at the fire. Cimon repeated,

  “What about the Spartans?”

  Lysias took a slug of wine, spat in the fire before grunting,

  “There’s been no word from Thermopylae.”

  We sat thinking through the implications of this as the flickering fire cast weird shadows. The whole camp was silent. Presumably there was a conversation like this round each ship’s company fire. Somewhere across the bay the Persians were sitting round the campfires they shared with traitors like Metiochus and Hipparchus. Their conversation would be more cheerful: they faced neither of our major problems.

  Lysias would have made a good Spartan; he was as laconic as they were. Eventually he said,

  “So we can fight one more day, then we leave the Spartans exposed. Or …”

  He faltered, Cimon prompted,

  “Or?”

  But I think we’d worked out the answer before Lysias said,

  “Or there are no Spartans any
more and we’re already outflanked.”

  We turned in shortly after; the conversation had taken from us any energy we still possessed. But the night wasn’t finished with us. Sometime later, I’m not sure how long although the stars had shifted position, I was shaken out of a disturbed doze by a hand placed over my mouth. A voice said,

  “Ssh, keep quiet, Mandrocles, get up and follow.”

  It was Ariston. I blearily struggled to my feet and followed him scrunching across the shingle to where a small knot of men stood by the Athene Nike’s stern. I recognised Cimon, Lysias and, to my surprise, the Spartan admiral Eurybiades looking tired and I think a little drunk. Themistocles began speaking as soon as I we arrived.

  “The message we expected from Leonidas has not come: there’s been no boat so I’ve …”

  He managed to correct himself in time.

  “That is we, rather, that is Admiral Eurybiades, has decided to send our best and quickest ship overnight to Thermopylae to ascertain the position. There they are to inform King Leonidas, if he still lives, that we will hold one more day then withdraw. That will give him time to make his own dispositions.”

  I glanced towards Eurybiades, he looked as if he was about to be sick, didn’t even make a show of commanding. Themistocles continued.

  “But if Leonidas is dead and Thermopylae is in the hands of the Persians, come directly back and warn us of the new danger we face. It is a desperate voyage at night for a damaged trireme but yours is the crew I trust most. The fate of Greece depends on you so may the Gods protect and go with you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  That nightmare mission to Thermopylae was like entering a large crowded room at night lit only by a dim lamp in one corner. You sense there is much going on but can only see the little that surrounds you. In fact, that’s true of our voyage through the night to Thermopylae as well; we knew there were rocks and shallows lurking in the darkness but couldn’t see them. That’s why the journey took so long, with Ariston grumbling the whole way that we shouldn’t be sailing these waters at night. But despite his fears he got us there, albeit at a snail’s pace.

  Sometime after dawn, the sea fret we sailed through lifted and we saw the mountains above the pass. Even from a distance we could tell the narrow pass was a seething mass of activity, but which way things were going there we had no idea. War is confusion seen through the eyes of ignorance, and at a distance that confusion is compounded.

  It takes nerve sailing into a mooring which may well be held by your mortal enemy but we had no choice. Our one consolation was that as long as there was still fighting then there was still hope and the closer we got the clearer it became that there was fighting, and hard fighting at that. By the time we pulled up to the shore we found chaos: it was like the worst pit of Hades. Lysias took the only sensible decision he could.

  “Helmsman, keep the boat offshore and in readiness to pull away at once if threatened, no one leaves their place at the rowing benches. The marines will remain on board. If we don’t return within two hours or you hear no word, get back quick as you can to the fleet and tell the commanders that the pass is lost and they are outflanked.”

  Good leadership, that. Ariston was impressed; all he said in reply though was,

  “Aye, trierarch, and the Gods go with you.”

  We jumped to land and the Athene Nike pulled a short way off into the channel ready to run for it at the sight of trouble. Three of us only, although I think Aeschylus would have joined us given the chance. Cimon, as the son of the hero of Marathon, led the party out of respect to Leonidas, or in the event of his death to whoever now commanded the Spartans. Lysias and I comprised his retinue.

  We scrambled up the steep track and arrived on the pass about seventy paces behind the wall. The place was scarcely recognisable, strewn with broken weapons and broken men. It was clear that most of the non-combatants had withdrawn. In fact apart from a contingent from one of the allies clustered together by the cliff face and looking ready to surrender the wall was undefended. There was plenty of evidence that it had been defended in the wounds disfiguring the bloody scattered dead.

  The noise of fighting came from beyond the wall, the Persian side. This we couldn’t understand; it seemed impossible to believe that the Spartans had gone on the offensive as that would be suicide. We had no alternative but to follow the noise of battle, picking our way through the dead and dying and cross over the wall. Thermopylae is a terrible place.

  We made our way through the detritus of war to the wall but as we reached it the howl of battle ceased, except for the groans of the maimed and dying that is. Our arrival by good fortune coincided with one of those lulls that occur in all battles when weary men driven beyond endurance pause to draw breath. So we had some moments to observe the carnage that had raged in the pass.

  Two lines of Spartans with a small reserve stood with their backs to us. At a glance it was clear that the dead Spartans we’d walked across combined with the ones on the ground this side of the wall far outnumbered those still standing. Those still standing were ragged and bloody.

  But beyond them, on a patch of ground slippery with blood and entrails, lay corpses. Heaped into piles, mostly Persian but with some Spartans and a knot of other Greeks lying dead together. It’s hard to describe that horror even now, despite all the other scenes of slaughter I’ve seen since. Beyond the dead packed densely together in the pass were the Persians, stretching back beyond where the eye could see. I recognised the black garb of the immortals at the front.

  I could see they were using the pause to bring fresh men from the rear up to the forward battle line, a luxury not afforded to the Spartans. At Marathon we’d forced the immortals to run; they wouldn’t run from here. We’d arrived in time for the death throes of the battle. We knew now what message we had to take back: the fleet had to withdraw. The stricken field was lost and with it perhaps the war.

  Lysias and I were turning to leave, to get away while there was still time, when one of those strange twists of fate occurred. A Spartan turned and saw us, shouted something. There was a command and both lines, keeping formation, backed towards us.

  I’ve never liked Spartans, never trusted them and for good reason, but there, there in that blood soaked patch of ground strewn with the mutilated dead and dying, they stood in their element; and for an instant I saw something magnificent. Cimon saw it too, except for him it came to define and ultimately ruin his life.

  None of them was without a wound but as we stared at these creatures entering their own deaths the ranks parted and a man from the front rank approached us. In my memory, looking back it seemed to have all happened in silence but with the noise of the dying that can’t have been the case.

  Then Leonidas stood before us, huge and grim like the God of war. Bare armed but wearing body armour behind his great shield. He was streaked in sweat and blood, cut about all over. His massive arms were slippery, streaked with grime, oil and blood. But it was his eyes you saw before everything else.

  His eyes were somewhere else, not with us, like those of the temple servants who imbibe the fragrant smoke in order to receive the words of the Goddess. Cimon’s eyes were on him, fixated. And to be fair to Cimon, I too felt a compulsion to stare at Leonidas, but he himself broke that spell.

  “Welcome, Athenians, I expected you earlier in answer to the message I sent.”

  Speaking for Cimon, Lysias replied,

  “We got no message, lord. Themistocles, son of Neocles, sent us to enquire if there is any way in which he can aid you.”

  Sounds unbelievable, reader, doesn’t it, that in those circumstances men should address each other as if they stood before the assembly. But I promise you that actually was what Lysias said. Leonidas replied,

  “No, there’s no aid he can send us, we’re beyond aid here. As for you, you’ve seen all you need. You see how things stand with us.”

  We knew and that should have been the end of it; our duty was to get the information
back to the fleet. Lysias and I were already turning to go when Cimon asked him,

  “But why leave your defensive position?”

  It was a good question but not for there and then, we had to be away. Then a remarkable thing happened. Leonidas threw back his head and laughed as his mouth opened wide I could see the blood running over his lips and into his beard. The men around him began to laugh and through the laughter he said,

  “If you care to hang around long enough on the other side of the wall, you’ll see why we’ve decided to enjoy the change of scenery over here.”

  They laughed harder at this. I think Leonidas saw the hero worship in the young man’s eyes and decided to go easy on him. He controlled the laughter and said,

  “Soon a second Persian army will come up behind us; in fact I’m surprised they’re not already in sight. So instead of waiting to be finished off like rats in a trap we decided to come out here onto open ground for our last stand and give them a lesson in how Spartans sell their lives.”

  I could see that Cimon wanted to join them; his hand went to his sword hilt. Leonidas must have seen it too; he said,

  “Your place is not with us, son of Miltiades, your duty is to warn the fleet and tell the rest of the Greeks how Spartans died, obedient to their word. So you’d better get off to your ship. I’ll pass on your respects to your father when I see him later today in the depths of Hades.”

  I’m not even sure Cimon was listening to this. He asked,

  “But how could they get behind you?”

  “How? We were betrayed, boy, some treacherous Greek led them through the pass I expect.”

  “But it was guarded.”

  Leonidas ignored this; his gaze was returning to the battle, he said to Lysias,

  “Tell Themistocles what you saw here. Tell him I kept my word and I expect him to do the same.”