The Last of the Wine (36 page)

Neither side owned slaves enough to row a fleet. Each used free aliens mostly, who worked to make a living. Ours, therefore, began at once slipping over to Lysander. He had moved his fleet from Miletos, where we had had it under our eye, north to Ephesos. There, where a deserter from us could reach him in a day, he sat at ease, drilling his men, choosing the best rowers, and spending Cyrus’ silver darics on timber and pitch.

We had all been ready to push on to Chios, whose capture would have been decisive. None of us doubted it would fall to Alkibiades; after all, he had taken it before, when it was ours. But now, with Lysander’s fleet between, and not enough silver to bid against him for rowers, we must wait for money from Athens, or sail to squeeze tribute out. One does not expect a commander-in-chief to sail on such petty missions, when his mind is fixed on total victory. For the first time on Samos, Alkibiades was bored.

As men make light of the first signs of sickness, so did we of the change we began to find. We were angry with the Athenians at home, for plaguing him with despatches about the delay; the injustice put us on his side. “Let him be merry sometimes,” we said; “by Herakles he has earned it.” If when we wanted orders the street of the women had swallowed him up, we laughed, and saw to it for him, and said that when he had work worth while he would be there soon enough. If he was drunk, he was not silly drunk; and we put up with a good deal of insolence from him because he had a way with him even then. But we seldom saw him on the ships. The rowers we had were a rough lot, the remnant when Lysander had picked the market over; if their pay was behind, they would grumble and curse even in his hearing, knowing we dared not pack them off. He would make a joke of it, or would not hear; but I think it burned his soul, even from scum like these. He was in love with being loved, as some people are with loving.

From this cause, I fancy, more than from indolence, he came less and less aboard, and used to send his friend Antiochos instead.

I can’t pretend that I disliked this man as much as some did. On the
Siren
Lysis always offered him a drink, saying to me that it was a pleasure to hear anyone talk who knew his work so well. If he was vain of his seamanship, he was a fine seaman, bred to it from childhood; he could both sail a ship and fight it, and the most villainous rowers cringed before his eyes. As things were, he was much fitter for the harbour drill than Alkibiades; he had humour too, or you may be sure they would not have been friends so long. But if he got on a ship where the trierarch stood on his dignity at getting his orders through a pilot, or would not be told anything, he lost patience quickly, and was not very careful of his tongue. He had come from the people; if he did not expect to have it thrown at him in a city like Samos, I do not blame him; however, he was very much resented. The more so because Alkibiades, whose fortunes he had shared through all the years of exile, would never hear a word against him.

Presently money got so tight that Alkibiades decided he would sail out himself to collect arrears of tribute. He was taking half the fleet north to the Hellespont, and leaving the rest behind to hold the Spartans. He roused himself to inspect the ships of his squadron; then he went back to his girls again; and the news broke that he was leaving Antiochos at Samos in supreme command.

Our hut was full half the night of men standing about and swearing, drinking our wine, and saying what they would do, with the heat of men who know they can do nothing. At length some of them decided upon a deputation to Alkibiades, and invited Lysis to lead it. “Good luck to you,” said he, “but count me out. I came to Samos as a lieutenant; my men promoted me by vote. I didn’t equip my ship, nor fit her, nor do I pay my pilot’s wage. Dog doesn’t eat dog.”—“Don’t compare yourself with that fellow,” someone said; “a gentleman is another matter.”—“Tell Father Poseidon so next time he blows a gale. Old Bluebeard is the first democrat. And if you’re calling on Alkibiades, bear in mind that he’ll have all the company he needs, by this time of night.”

Some cooled off at this; but the angriest urged one another on, and went. They found him, I believe, with his favourite girl, a new one called Timandra, and in no mood to be disturbed. He told them shortly that he had been appointed to lead a democrat army, and, not having heard of any change, had given command of the fleet to the best seaman in it. This, with the blue open stare that made his insolence bite like a wind off the mountains, sent them home with flattened hackles. He sailed next day.

He called a council of the trierarchs just before he left; not to explain himself, but to tell us we were only to fight defensive actions while he was gone, and none that were in any way avoidable. We were only half a fleet; and all of Lysander’s was in port.

I was busy just then. The Samians were about to hold the Games of Here, and learning I was a crowned victor, called me in to help train the boys. I found I liked the work; there were some fine youngsters there, whom it was a pleasure to give advice to; so I listened with half an ear when people complained of Antiochos, and of the blunt way he told the trierarchs that they were letting the mastery of the sea slip through their fingers. Now Alkibiades was gone he got us out twice as often on manoeuvre. Lysis, and some other keen young captains who wanted to learn, did not mind it; but some of those who owned their ships were so angry at being run here and there at a pilot’s orders, that they could have eaten him raw. Before long he decided that we needed an observation post at Cape Rain, across the strait, in case Lysander should try to slip north and take Alkibiades in the rear. So he took a score or so of ships, and stood across to Ionia.

It seemed to me a folly. Samos has high mountains inland, from whose tops one sees a great space of sea all mixed with sky, and the isles like dolphins swimming in cloud. We kept lookouts up there, who could very well tell us what Ephesos was up to. It was one of these very men, indeed, who rode his mule down into Samos some days later, to say that a sea-fight was going on just outside Ephesos harbour.

It had taken him some hours to get down from the mountain. We stripped for action, and stood by. Then another scout came from the hills to eastward, and reported a great smoke-plunge rising from Cape Rain, as if someone were putting a trophy up.

We were not left uncertain long. Hard on this news, south through the straits limped the crippled ships, those that were left, with ragged oar-banks and started timbers, the men bone-tired with baling, the decks full of the hurt and half-drowned, picked up from the sinking wrecks. We helped the wounded to disembark, and sent out for wood to burn the dead.

After three years of victory unbroken, we had forgotten the feel of a defeat. We were the army of Alkibiades, for whom, when we entered a tavern, all other troops made way, or left, if they had lately shown their back in battle; for we were choice about whom we drank with, and made no secret of it.

Ship after ship came in, confirming the tale which at first we had disbelieved. Antiochos had sailed out of port that morning, on patrol as he said, with a couple of ships, dropped sail outside Ephesos harbour, and rowed right into it, across the prows of Lysander’s beached warships, shouting insults, till the readiest put out in chase of him. The Athenians at Cape Rain, seeing an engagement going on, sent some ships to help; the Spartans reinforced their own; and this went on till both fleets were fully engaged, all piecemeal and haphazard; with such result as, considering the difference in numbers alone, might have been foreseen.

Already an ugly crowd was gathering on Samos waterfront, waiting for Antiochos to come in. If he had been stoned, I don’t think some of the trierarchs would have stirred to stop it.

As for Lysis and me, though we had lost good friends in the action, it had got beyond that with us. We saw that this man, who had been loyal to Alkibiades through every change of fortune for five and twenty years, would now be his ruin. After these months of idleness, his credit in Athens would never hold through this. His enemies would get at last all they had needed. So we two waited, a little ashamed perhaps of our curiosity, to see how a man would look who had done such a thing to his friend, and had yet to bring him news of it.

“Did he run mad?” I said. “He could close-haul anyone; a planned assault, even against odds, would have given him a chance.”—“How many trierarchs do you think would have followed him, clean against orders, if he had asked them first?”—“They say,” I answered, “that he has been at Alkibiades for years to give him a command. For his friend’s sake, I suppose, he gave it the look of accident, not to flout his orders openly.” Lysis shook his head. “Everyone is to blame,” he said. “Alkibiades for giving in to him, from laziness, or out of softness for the man because he saw him slighted. The trierarchs who goaded him till he flaunted, like a green lad new to arms, to prove himself as good as they. But he himself most of all, for buying his pleasure with what was not his to spend. The trierarchs hated him, yet they stood by him in his folly; the worst of them, in the event, have shown themselves his betters. All these three years it has been our honour to stand together, to obey a sudden order without question, never to leave a hard-pressed ship without support. All this, which he held in trust, he spent in his own quarrel; and that, though I pity him, I can’t forgive. For it will be flawed henceforward, as you will see.”

Just then his ship rounded the point, water-logged, dragging on splintered oars. She came in and beached, and the crowd growled and waited. The wounded were helped or carried off, and still Antiochos did not show himself. Then they brought ashore a dead body, lying on a plank. The breeze lifted the sea-cloak and showed the face. I daresay that when he saw what the end would be, he had not been very careful of his life. He had never feared death, or any man living, except Alkibiades.

The fleet was sighted a few days later, returning from the Hellespont. There was a great crowd round him when he came ashore, and I was far back in it; but he was so tall that one could see his face over other men’s heads. I saw him stare, wondering at the silence; and, when he had the news, I could have told you to the moment when he said, “Send Antiochos to me,” and got his answer.

He stood quite still, with his blue eyes fixed and empty. He had no need to hide his face when he would hide his heart. There came back to my mind the tale of their first meeting, which I had once heard Kritias tell. There was a table, I suppose, set up in the orchestra of the theatre, with a row of grey bankers sitting at it; the rich stiff citizens were coming up in turn with their gifts for the public chest, making the most of their progress down the aisle; the tallymen counted, the herald announced the sum, the crowd cheered, the donor bowed and went back to the compliments of his friends and sycophants. Then over the dusty grass strolled Alkibiades, and hearing the noise had a whim to see whom they could be cheering when he was not there. He walked through the pine-trees and came out above the benches, and asked what was going on; and his love of emulation quickened. So down the long stairs strode the youth, tall and strong and shining, and everyone applauded the mere sight of his beauty: it was said in those days that if swift-footed Achilles was as perfect of face and form as Homer sang, he must have looked like Alkibiades. He walked up to the board where the bankers were sitting behind their boxes, and planked down the gold he had been taking to buy a pair of matched greys for a chariot; the people yelled, and, frightened by their noise, out of his mantle flew the quail with its clipped wing, and flapped about the assembly. The bankers clicked their tongues, the rich men sulked, the people fell about the seats trying to catch the bird and win a look from its master, till in fright it fluttered out on the hillside and lodged in a fir-tree. And while everyone pointed and did nothing, up ran a young sailor with a black beard and gold earrings, and went aloft like a monkey, and fetched down the bird, and walking up to Alkibiades, gave him a bold bright look with eyes as blue as his own. So golden Achilles held out his hand laughing to Patroklos, and they walked away together through the noise and the longing faces. That was the beginning of it, and this the end.

For a moment or two he stood silent on the waterfront, looking before him; then he turned and gave an order. A trumpet brayed over Samos the call to arms; the crowd broke up, seamen ran to the ships, soldiers to the camp to fetch their armour; Alkibiades strode away to his flagship. As I came back with the hoplites I saw him pacing the poop deck, back and forth, or hailing a ship that was delaying and telling them with curses to make haste. Then he gave the word to stand away; the fleet shook itself free of the land, and set sail for Ephesos. I felt my blood run warm again, the poison of defeat gone out of it; we followed him like lost dogs that have found the master and run round him barking, ready to tackle anything they see.

The Spartans were exercising before the harbour when we sighted it. But when we reached it, not one was outside the bar. Lysander had been willing to do business, when he saw victory going cheap; but he knew who was here now to drive the bargain. His ships had their orders; and in Sparta, orders are obeyed.

All day we beat up and down between Ephesos and Cape Rain, while Alkibiades waited for the Spartans to come out and give him battle. When the sun was sinking, we turned for Samos again. The lamps were lit when we got there, beckoning kindly from the harbour taverns. We beached the ship, and I said to Lysis, “I shall get drunk tonight. Will you come?” He answered, “I was going to propose it.”

We made a night of it, but in the end we shook off the company we had found and went off together, both feeling, I think, that we could only share with one another what was in our hearts. A grief of loss ran through us, like a tune without words. It was not so much the loss of Alkibiades; for some time past he had been slipping away from us. If you can believe that a lyre may grieve for its own music, when the poet hangs it up and leaves it for boys to play on, that was our grief.