Steven Pressfield - Gates of Fire - An Epic Novel of the Battle of Thermopylae

I fear the sea anytime, but never more than on a moonless night and in the hands of strangers.

Our captain had insisted on bringing along his two brothers, though a man and a boy could easily handle the light swift craft. I have known these coasters and man jacks and mistrust them; the brothers, if indeed that's what they were, were hulking louts barely capable of speech, with beards so dense they began just below the eyeline and extended thick as fur to the matted pelts of their chests.

An hour passed. The smack was making far too much speed; across the dark water the plash of the transports' oar-blades and even the creaking of looms against tholepins carried easily.

Alexandros ordered the pirate twice to retard his progress, but the man tossed it off with a laugh.

We were downwind, he said, no one could hear us, and even if they did they would take us for part of the convoy, or one of the spectator boats, trailing to catch the action.

Sure enough, as soon as the belly of the coastline had swallowed the lights of Rhion behind us, a Spartan cutter emerged out of the black and made way to intercept us. Doric voices hailed the smack and ordered her to heave-to. Suddenly our skipper demanded his money. When we land, Alexandros insisted, as agreed. The beards clamped oars in their fists like weapons. Cutter's getting closer, boys. How will it go with you if you're caught?

Give him nothing, Alexandros, I hissed.

But the boy perceived the precariousness of our predicament. Of course, Captain. It will be my pleasure.

The pirate accepted his fare, grinning like Charon on the ferry to hell. Now, lads. Over the side with you.

We were smack in the middle of the widest part of the gulf.

Our boatman indicated the Spartan cutter bearing swiftly down. Catch a line and keep under the stem while I feed these lubbers a yard of shit. The beards loomed. Soon as we talk these fools off, we'll haul you back aboard none the worse for wear.

Over we went. Up came the cutter. We heard the scrape of a knife blade through rope.

The line came off in our hands.

Happy landings, lads!

In a flash the smack's steering oar bit deep into the swell, the two worthless brutes suddenly showed themselves anything but. Three swift heaves on the driving oars and the smack shot off like a sling bullet.

We were cast adrift in the middle of the channel.

The cutter came up, calling after the smack as she sped from sight. The Spartans still hadn't seen us. Alexandras clamped my arm. We must not sing out, that would mean dishonor.

I agree. Drowning's a lot more honorable.

Shut up.

We held silent, treading water while the cutter quartered the area, scanning for other craft that might be spies. Finally she showed her stern and rowed off. We were alone beneath the stars.

As vast as the sea can look from the deck of a ship, it looks even bigger from a single handbreadth above the surface.

Which shore do we make for?

Alexandros gave me a look as if I had lost my senses. Of course we would go forward.

We paddled for what seemed like hours. The shore had not crawled one spear-length closer.

What if the current's against us? For all we know we're stuck here in place, or even drifting backward.

We're closer, Alexandros insisted.

Your eyes must be better than mine.

There was nothing to do but paddle and pray. What monsters of the sea prowled at this moment beneath our feet, ready to snare our legs in their horrible coils, or shear us off at the kneecaps? I could hear Alexandros gulp water, fighting an asthmatic fit.

We pulled closer together. Our eyes were gumming up from the salt; our arms felt like lead.

Tell me a story, Alexandros said.

For a moment I feared he was going mad.

To encourage each other. Keep our spirits up. Tell me a story.

I recited some verses from the Iliad which Bruxieus had made Diomache and me commit to memory, our second summer in the hills. I was getting the hexameters out of order but Alexandros didn't care; the words seemed to fortify him greatly.

Dienekes says the mind is like a house with many rooms, he said. There are rooms one must not go into. To anticipate one's death is one of those rooms. We must not allow ourselves even to think it.

He instructed me to continue, selecting only verses of valor. He declared that we must under no circumstances give thought to failure. I think the gods may have dropped us here on purpose. To teach us about those rooms.

We paddled on. Orion the Hunter had stood overhead when we began; now his arc descended, halfway down the sky, The shore stood as far off as ever.

Do you know Agathe, Ariston's sister? Alexandros asked out of nowhere. I'm going to marry her. I've never told anyone that.

Congratulations.

You think I'm joking. But my thoughts have kept coming back to her for hours, or however long we've been out here. He was serious. Do you think she'll have me?

It made as much sense to debate this in the middle of the ocean as anything else. Your family outranks hers. If your father asks, hers will have to say yes.

I don't want her that way. You've watched her. Tell me the truth. Will she have me? I considered it. She made you that amber charm. Her eyes never leave you when you sing. She comes out to the Big Ring with her sisters when we run. She pretends to be training, but she's really sneaking looks at you.

This seemed to cheer Alexandros mightily. Let's make a push. Twenty minutes as strong as we can, and see how far we can get.

When we hit twenty, we decided to try for another.

You have a girl you love too, don't you? Alexandros asked as we paddled. From your city.

The girl you lived in the hills with, your cousin who went to Athens.

I said it was impossible that he could know all that.

He laughed. I know everything. I hear it from the girls and the goat boys and from your helot friend Dekton. He said he wanted to know more about this girl of yours.

I told him I wouldn't tell him.

I can help you to see her. My great-uncle is proxenos for Athens. He can have her found, and brought to the city if you wish.

The swells were getting bigger; a cold wind had gotten up. We were going nowhere. I supported Alexandros again as another choking fit attacked him. He stuck his thumb between his teeth and bit through the flesh till it bled. The pain seemed to steady him. Dienekes says that warriors advancing into battle must speak steadily and calmly to each other, each man encouraging his mate. We have to keep talking, Xeo.

The mind plays tricks in conditions of such extremity. I cannot tell how much I spoke aloud to Alexandros over the succeeding hours and how much simply swam before memory's eye as we labored endlessly toward the shore that refused to come closer.

I know I told him of Bruxieus. If my knowledge of Homer was worthy, all credit lay with this fortune-cursed man, sightless as the poet himself, and his fierce will that I and my cousin not grow to adulthood wild and unlettered in the hills.

This man was mentor to you, Alexandros pronounced gravely, as Dienekes is to me. He wished to hear more. What was it like to lose mother and father, to watch your city burn? How long did you and your cousin remain in the hills? How did you get food, and how protect yourself from the elements and wild beasts?

In gulps and snatches, I told him.

By our second summer in the mountains, Diomache and I had become such accomplished hunters that not only did we no longer need to descend to town or farm for food, we no longer wished to.

We were happy in the hills. Our bodies were growing. We had meat, not once or twice a month or on festival occasions only, as in our fathers' houses, but every day, with every meal.

Here was our secret. We had found dogs.