Christian Cameron - God of War - The Epic Story of Alexander the Great

Alexander drank some wine. ‘You are dismissed,’ he said.

I turned and left the tent. I relate this to show that it was not all wine and roses. Alexander had launched four attacks against Pine Island – you won’t find this in the Military Journal – and been pushed off every time. The last time he’d got ashore in person, certain that his men would walk on water to save him. Instead, he’d almost been overrun, and twenty hypaspitoi had died saving him. Two full files. Dead.

Alexander probably summoned me to order me to lead the next assault. I was mouthy and he dismissed me and summoned Perdiccas, and he went and got wounded in the arm and the hip so that he was out for the rest of the campaign.

The next day it was Cassander’s turn. He went and got knocked unconscious by a blow to the throat that left him unable to speak for days. No great loss.

I brought in more canoes and lost another trooper in the endless fighting, out there in the woods. And I learned from prisoners that the Getae, the largest, fiercest and best-mounted tribe of Thracians – not really Thracians, but a sort of mixed bag of Thracians and Scythians – were present in force on the far bank, with a fortified camp and at least ten thousand horsemen. They were feeding the Thracians on Pine Island.

When I returned, I heard about Cassander, and I went to Alexander’s pavilion and was admitted.

‘I’m sure you have a great deal to tell me, Ptolemy,’ Alexander said bitterly.

I realised that he was drunk. But I told him about the Getae, anyway.

He snorted. ‘Barbarians. They won’t stop me. I’ll have Pine Island, I’ll build a bridge like Darius and we’ll march across.’

‘When do you send Hephaestion?’ I asked. ‘You’ve sent everyone else. When is it his turn to try for a miracle?’

‘You are dismissed. I should never have admitted you,’ Alexander slurred.

‘You’re drunk. That’s not your way, lord. And I’m here to remind you that it is not all arete. You have a kingdom.’ I was walking a sword edge.

He spat and drank again. ‘I am invincible,’ he said.

‘Just such a prophecy that the gods send to drive a man to madness. There’s more ways than one to win a battle.’ I shrugged. ‘We will never storm that island, not with ten thousand canoes.’

He shrugged.

Hephaestion glared at me. ‘I would be proud to lead tomorrow’s assault,’ he said. ‘I’m not afraid of it, like Ptolemy,’ he added.

‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid.’ I shrugged. ‘Lord, we need another solution. All the good we’ve done with those victories is being frittered away with these little actions.’

Alexander nodded. ‘Begone,’ he said.

So I went.

The next morning, Alexander called all his officers together and outlined his new plan. He was as fresh as a new-caught tuna, and his plan was all daring and no sense. We were going to take the fleet and as many soldiers as could be fitted into the canoes and boats, and we were going across the Danube. His point was that by holding both banks, we would force Pine Island to surrender. They couldn’t feed themselves.

It was a fine plan, except that there were ten thousand Getae on the far bank, just waiting for us. It sounded to me like hubris of the grandest kind.

But – it sounded better than battering Pine Island for another week while we ran out of food.

I spent two days gathering another forty boats. The banks were stripped bare. On a positive note, the Thracians had given up trying to ambush my patrols. Even they couldn’t take any more casualties.

The army was mutinous. It’s hard to believe, now, that Alexander’s armies were ever mutinous. In fact, they often were. He had a way of expecting superhuman effort too often, of making plans and not explaining them, or showing childish displeasure when the troops failed to achieve success against high odds – in fact, he didn’t understand them. When we were at the edge of battle, he understood them, because men at the edge of battle are more alive, more alert, smarter, better men – more like Alexander, in fact.

But the campaign was wearing them out. We’d marched far, and we were at the edge of the world. We were running out of wine and oil, and those were the key supplies for any army of Hellenes. Most of the cavalry and the hypaspists were fighting every day, in scrubby little actions against teenagers – warriors so young we could take no pride in killing them, but their sling stones and arrows hurt us. And the pezhetaeroi were making daily attempts at Pine Island, and failing. Failure is the canker that eats at an army, and two miraculous victories – as good as anything Philip ever won against the Thracians – were immediately offset by the daily defeats at Pine Island, because soldiers are as fickle as whores and twice as costly.

I tried to tell Alexander that. Twice.

The second time was worse. He looked at me – he had his helmet under his arm, and he was about to take the Prodromoi south to make sure our retreat was clear.

‘Are they children, to be cosseted?’ he asked. ‘See to it.’

‘Can we set a date for marching home?’ I asked. I managed all this under the guise of the sacred Military Journal.

Alexander was looking at the entries for the last few days, and carefully running the spatulate end of the stylus across the casualties for Pine Island. ‘Yes,’ he said. He was taking this seriously. He was no fool, and if I’m giving that impression, wipe it from your mind. He was as far above me as I am above most men. He just couldn’t think like them, and they were mysterious to him. He looked at me under those blond eyelashes and he gave me that rare smile – the look of his full attention.

‘How long do I have?’ he asked quietly.

‘Three weeks,’ I answered, because I’d prayed he’d accept my guidance and so I had an answer ready. ‘If I let it be known this morning, I think you’ll find the men a great deal more willing to try the Danube crossing. They think . . . they think we’re going to march off the edge of the world.’

‘How well they know me,’ he said with a gentle smile. ‘Let it be done.’ He looked at the Military Journal again and furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Every ambassador is going to end up reading this, Ptolemy. Keep that in mind when you write. I don’t ask that we seem perfect.’ He grinned. ‘Merely invincible.’

I must have grinned back. To be honest, I was relieved, myself – first, because we were not wintering here, which I had feared he’d try to do, and second, because this was the Alexander I loved. He’d been hard to find since the victories started to come.

That morning I summoned all my adjutants and gathered the entries for the day before, and then I passed the word – three weeks. The Feast of Demeter in the Macedonian festival calendar, and we’d march for hearth and home.

Ever work yourself to exhaustion?

And then eat a meal? And you can feel the power going into your limbs – you can feel the lifting of the fatigue? Eh? That’s how it was after I dismissed my adjutants. I could feel the change.

We loaded men into the boats. The cavalry went on the triremes, a trick we’d learned from Athens, and the infantry went in the canoes and fishing boats. It took us all day to cross the river, and we spent the night just offshore, a fleet of vulnerable dugout canoes overladen with men, armour and long spears. In the morning, we landed with the dawn, and marched inland through fields of oats and wheat that stood almost as high as a man, and we marched at open order, with every infantryman carrying his spear parallel to the ground so that the glinting heads wouldn’t give us away. The cavalry was last ashore, inside a great square protected by the infantry, and we got on our horses without incident. I led my squadron out to the right. Cleitus had the left squadron.