John Stack: Captain of Rome

Septimus dropped his gaze, ignoring the unspoken order of eyes front as he sensed a tiny vibration beneath his feet. His mind registered and processed the sensation within a heartbeat, triggering a memory and a corresponding sense of alarm. As if to confirm his dread a sound began to fill the air around him, a sound like distant thunder to the uninitiated, but unmistakable to a veteran. His mouth began to form the warning but a dozen other men in the rear ranks beat him to it, their uncoordinated voices overlapping into a jumble of sound, but their warning nonetheless distinctive.

‘Enemy cavalry to the rear!’

The low sun blazed into Hamilcar’s eyes as he crested the hill and he blinked away the momentary blindness, his eyes taking in the entire vista before him in an instant. To his left, a mile away and less than two hundred yards from the town, the Roman legions seemed to be in disarray but Hamilcar’s military eye could see they were deploying into a battle formation, their cohesion evident even at this range. His gaze did not linger long on the enemy however, but shifted to a point directly across from his own on the other hill flanking the valley approach to Thermae. He was half way down the slope, his men following en masse behind, before he spotted the second attack force breach the top of the hill, the second unit of five hundred cavalry that would link with his own on the valley floor.

Hamilcar wheeled his horse into the centre of the valley and his men formed a line of battle on his flanks as they continued at the gallop. He straightened up in the saddle, shifting his weight and locking his legs against the barrel of his mount. His horse, a veteran herself of many battles, sensed the shift and, raising her head slightly, allowed Hamilcar to guide her with his legs, thereby freeing his hands from the reins. He reached behind and drew his sword from the scabbard strapped to his back, drawing the blade in a high arc, a fluid motion that signalled to his men the commitment to battle.

Hamilcar set his gaze firmly on the Roman formation a thousand yards in front of him. He had prepared for this moment for the past three months, from the day he had watched Hannibal Gisco suffer and die on the cross, punishment for the arrogance that had been the Carthaginians’ undoing at Mylae. He had marshalled his forces and then almost immediately concealed them, hiding them from the Roman enemy who sailed unopposed across north-eastern Sicily. He had surreptitiously watched their every move, expecting and then confirming the imminent attack on Thermae and with tempered hate he had laid his trap. Now Hamilcar’s eyes glazed over as he muttered a prayer to Anath, the Carthaginian goddess of war, for her favour in ensuring the enemy had approached unawares. With her good grace he prayed the Roman fleet had advanced under the same veil of ignorance and arrogance. As his vision cleared, the enemy ranks, although still eight hundred yards distant, seemed to fill his vision. A visceral war cry reared up within him and he roared his defiance at the Romans, a shout that was taken up by the thousand men who followed him without question.

‘Attack speed!’ Atticus commanded.

The whip cracks below decks intensified at the order as the two hundred slaves of the Aquila worked to get the trireme up to eleven knots, the drum beat intensifying, the heightened rhythm triggering the adrenaline to rise in Atticus’s veins at the anticipation of battle. The Carthaginian line was less than three hundred yards away, nine triremes and one quinquereme in line abreast formation perpendicular to the dock, their hulls pointing directly at the Roman advance.

‘Captain…’ Lucius remarked slowly, standing at Atticus’s shoulder.

‘I see it…’ Atticus replied, his mind racing. The enemy decks were swarming with activity but Atticus noticed they weren’t getting underway. In fact, they were showing no signs of advancing.

The Carthaginians’ strength was in ramming their enemy. For that they needed sea room and that space was rapidly being eroded by the Roman vanguard advancing at speed. In less than a minute it would be too late and they would be sitting ducks.

‘Or the perfect bait,’ Atticus realised suddenly. He whipped around to look out over the aft-rail to the headlands encasing the harbour and the entire fleet of Roman galleys now enclosed within them. ‘Poseidon protect us!’ he whispered.

‘Masthead lookout!’ Atticus shouted, ‘Check out approach, beyond the harbour mouth!’

Corin immediately turned from the impending battle and looked out over the low lying headlands. From fifty feet below Atticus could clearly see the sudden look of alarm on the lookout’s face and dread filled his stomach.

‘Enemy ships approaching from the east!’ Corin roared, pointing to the harbour mouth and the rush of Carthaginian galleys entering at battle speed.

Atticus was already running to the main deck as Corin shouted the alarm, the captain seeking Lucius out amongst the throng of men surrounding the mainmast. He spotted him immediately, his bull-like stature pushing through the legionaries as he too sought his commander.

‘Lucius! Get aloft. I want a full count including formation!’ Atticus ordered, knowing the inexperienced Corin wasn’t up to the vital task.

Lucius nodded and dashed to the running rigging, grasping the rope with his calloused hands and nimbly climbing arm over arm to the head of the mainmast.

‘Drusus!’

Immediately the acting centurion was at Atticus’s side.

‘Have your men form up on the foredeck behind the corvus. Once you have control of the enemy main deck I want you to fire her and retreat. Don’t engage below decks.’

Drusus saluted, his clenched fist slamming into his chest armour. He turned and issued terse orders to his men, the soldiers breaking ranks to reform on the fore. Atticus hesitated a moment to watch him. He was an optio of the Fourth legion who had been drafted to the marines as Septimus’s second-in-command. With the centurion absent, Drusus was in full command of the marines, a position he had never held before in a naval battle. He was a quiet man who kept his own counsel, but Atticus knew him to be a strict disciplinarian and he followed orders to the letter, never questioning a command or commander. But he lacked experience and Atticus realised he would need to guide both galley and marines in the fight to come.

‘Thirty enemy galleys!’ Lucius roared suddenly from the masthead and Atticus lifted his gaze. ‘Three quinqueremes in the van! Moving in arrow formation!’

‘Captain!’ Varro shouted, breaking Atticus’s concentration, ‘What’s going on?’

‘A trap, Tribune,’ Atticus said brusquely, not looking at the Varro but at the Carthaginian galley to the Aquila’s fore, now less than a hundred yards away, ‘and we sailed right into it.’

‘A trap?’ Varro repeated, a slight edge of apprehension in his voice, his confidence of minutes before suddenly challenged.

‘Ready the corvus!’ Atticus shouted, watching Gaius from the corner of his eye as the helmsman lined up the bow of the Aquila.

‘What are you doing?’ Varro asked, his previous command forgotten. ‘We must withdraw.’

‘No!’ Atticus said angrily but then immediately instantly calmed his voice, needing the tribune to understand. ‘We must attack, Tribune. We’re too close, too committed. We need to wipe out the threat to our front before we turn. Otherwise we’ll be forced to fight on two fronts.’

Varro looked away, his face twisted in uncertainty, his eyes darting left and right. Atticus turned his attention once more to the attack.

With twenty yards to go Drusus ordered his hastati to release their javelins, the final prelude to attack that would shatter any confluence of men on the Carthaginian foredeck. The Aquila shuddered as the seventy ton galley struck the unyielding hull of the Carthaginian ship and the corvus was instantly released, its thirty-six foot length hammering down onto the enemy deck, the three foot long spikes on the underside of the ramp crashing into the seasoned pine of the enemy fore, securing the two galleys together in a deadly embrace. Only then did the legionaries roar, their bloodthirsty cry filling their hearts with anger and courage. Within seconds Drusus led all sixty of his men across and a battle line was formed at the head of the Carthaginian galley, the interlocking four-foot scutum shields of the legionaries creating an impenetrable barrier against which the Punici could not stand. Slowly and inexorably the Romans began their advance, their swords finding the gaps between the shields, each thrust searching for and finding the flesh of the enemy as man after man fell beneath Roman iron. The noise of battle carried clearly down the length of the Aquila to the aft-deck; cries of anger and pain mixed with the clash of weapons. It was a sound like no other in the world and Atticus was transfixed by the sight before him, the vicious struggle that he had known half his life, first as a pirate hunter and now as a galley captain in the war against the Punici.