No Time Like the Past (23 page)

Chapter Seventeen

We thought we’d hold a briefing for Markham, who was coming with us, which just went to show what we knew, because he ended up briefing us.

I don’t think Peterson quite believed his claim that he was familiar with the facts. ‘All of them?’

‘Of course. The Battle of Thermopylae was required reading.’

‘For what?’

He paused and then said evasively, ‘For me.’

‘In what capacity?’

‘During training.’

‘It’s like pulling teeth,’ said Peterson. He fixed Markham with what he probably imagined was a penetrating stare. ‘For what were you training?’

Silence. Markham shifted uneasily.

‘Hang on a minute, weren’t you in the army?’

‘How did you know that?’

‘You told us, cloth head.’

If, like me, you were sitting well back and watching very carefully, you could just see the flicker of amusement in Markham’s eyes.

‘Did I?’

‘Hold on,’ I said. ‘Were you studying tactics and things at – what do they call it – officer school?’

‘Not for very long.’

‘You surely didn’t set fire to that as well?’

‘No, of course not,’ he said, wounded to the core. ‘Not the whole thing. It’s a big place, you know.’

‘So just a small corner of it?’

‘Barely even that. Just a few rooms. Maybe a bit of corridor. There was plenty of building left so I don’t know why they made such a fuss.’

‘So they chucked you out?’

‘Of course not. We all put it down to youthful high spirits.’

‘So why did you leave?’

‘I was recruited?’

‘What? By St Mary’s?’

‘Of course.’

‘Dr Bairstow recruited you?’

‘No,’ he said, patiently. ‘I told you. He recruited Major Guthrie and I came with him. A complete package. But, to drag you back on topic, before all that, we studied assorted battles and Thermopylae was one of them.’

Peterson turned to me. ‘It’s like discovering a diamond in a compost heap.’

He was indignant. ‘You can’t call me a compost heap. I’m almost certain that’s against rules and regs.’

‘He’s not calling you a compost heap, idiot. He’s calling you a diamond.’

‘Oh.’ He settled down. ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’

Peterson settled back and put his feet up. ‘Go on then. Give us Thermopylae.’

Markham cleared his throat.

‘OK. 480BC. The Persian King, Xerxes, is marching on what is now Greece, intent on making them part of his vast empire. No one’s anticipating any real difficulties. Greece is a collection of tiny city-states, whose leaders can’t even comfortably be in the same room as each other, let alone form an effective alliance. However, needs must when the devil drives, and the Greeks manage to put aside their differences and assemble their forces. Unfortunately, the Spartans were the only country with any sort of professional troops and as the massive Persian army approaches, they’re celebrating some sort of religious festival –’

‘The Carneia,’ I murmured.

‘That’s the one. Anyway, because it was a bit of an emergency, Leonidas of Sparta is allowed to take three hundred of his bodyguard to block the pass at Thermopylae. Legend says they knew they were all going to their deaths, so the order was “Sires only”. In other words, only Spartans with living sons could fight. So off they set, picking up reinforcements as they went.’

He paused for a glug of tea and to snaffle the last chocolate biscuit from under Peterson’s nose.

‘I can’t remember the names of all the allies and their armies, but they reckon there were about seven thousand of them when they arrived at the Hot Gates. Xerxes, apparently, tried to bribe his way past them and when they laughed at him, he ordered them to hand over their arms. To which the Spartans replied, “Come and get them!”

‘Anyway, the Spartans chose their ground well. Cliffs on one side and rough seas on the other. There are three sets of gates, one at each end of the pass, and one in the middle and Leonidas set up camp at the middle one.

‘The Persians attack – the battle lasts three days with the Spartans giving a good account of themselves and Xerxes apparently having hissy fits because his magnificent army can’t get past. He has huge logistical problems keeping them all fed and watered,
and
he’s fretting about his fleet, which is out there somewhere.’

‘However …’ said Peterson, unwrapping my emergency packet of Hob Nobs.

‘However,’ said Markham, helping himself to the top three without even seeming to move, ‘they’re betrayed by some bloke …’

‘Ephialtes of Trachis,’ murmured Peterson,

‘Yes, him, and he leads a force around the back and the Persians fall on them from the rear and they all die. An important lesson, they told us, in how a secure position can suddenly become a trap. We had to write essays, draw diagrams, the lot. It was good.

‘Anyway, it seems those few days they held the Persians back were just long enough for the Greeks to get their fleet operational and not long enough for any of them actually to fall out and start killing each other, instead of the enemy. The Persians were eventually finished off at the Battle of Platea. Everyone agrees the Spartans were very brave and they made a cracking, but not very accurate, film out of it.’

He busied himself with the biscuits again.

Peterson and I looked at each other.

‘Masterful,’ said Peterson.

‘Yeah,’ he said, spraying crumbs all over my office. ‘I got good marks.’

‘You also got expelled.’

‘I told you – I left,’ he said with dignity. ‘Having received a job offer commensurate with my qualifications and talents …’

‘You mean St Mary’s – a place where setting fire to things is actually considered a qualification.’

‘That’s the one,’ he agreed.

It’s always the dust that I remember. In my eyes. In my hair. The smell of it. The feel of it making everything gritty to the touch. And it was hot. So hot. A brazen sun hung in a sky from which the heat had leached all colour. An eagle hovered on a thermal, high above our heads.

Huge, forbidding cliffs hugged the coastline, leaving just a narrow passageway barely wide enough for a single chariot to pass through, let alone an army. Rough seas chopped incessantly at this narrow place, throwing spray into the air. In a few days, these waters would run red with blood as bodies and bits of bodies bobbed about in the choppy waters.

We stood above the Pass of Thermopylae in what today is modern Greece. Even from all the way up here, I could see the steaming pools that gave the Hot Gates their name. I could smell the sulphur on the breeze. Just as in Troy, this was a place where the unseen presence of the gods cast long shadows. For the Spartans, these Hot Gates were the gateway to the next world.

Their only weakness was the infamous goat track that ran behind them, impassable to heavy troops or cavalry but easily accessible by foot soldiers. The legend says that the Spartans were caught unawares, but Leonidas was perfectly well aware of its existence and had despatched a thousand Phocians to block their path. With hindsight, this was a mistake. If he had strengthened this force with even a few Spartans, the whole course of the battle might have been different. Unable to spare even a single man, however, he mistakenly placed his faith in the Phocians and kept his own men where he thought they were needed most. His force consisted of his bodyguard; about five thousand other troops, mostly from the Peloponnese; seven hundred men from Thespiae; and about four hundred from Thebes.

The Persians waited on the plain to the west. Leonidas and his men waited at the Gates. The Greek fleet waited on the beach at Euboea, watching to see which way the Persian fleet would turn. Everyone was waiting. And it was August. The heat was blistering, beating down on us like a hammer on an anvil.

I turned west to face the sun.

A huge dust haze on the horizon signalled the position of the Great King and his massive army. Herodotus puts the figure at two point six million; the Greek poet Simonides at nearly four million. Another contemporary estimated about eight hundred thousand. Modern estimates, with their tendency to downplay ancient glories, generally reckon between about a hundred thousand to three hundred thousand. All of them facing seven thousand Greeks. At night, we could see the tiny flecks of light that were the Persian campfires, stretching to the distant horizon. As if all the stars in the heavens had fallen to earth. Reports spoke of rivers being drunk dry. Looking down on that vast force now, it was easy to believe.

We knew there would be a five-day pause, while both armies took stock, surveyed each other, and waited. Xerxes would use the time to send out spies who would report back that the Spartans, famously, were indulging in a little light exercise, oiling their bodies, and combing their hair. Traditional pastimes for an army that boasted it looked forward to battle – warfare was far less strenuous than their regular training regime. Leonidas, of course, had no incentive to attack, but Xerxes, with, at a conservative estimate, a hundred thousand mouths to feed, could not afford to linger. His supply lines must have been perilously long.

We hung camouflage nets around the pod, checked over all our gear, and then ventured forth to search out the best vantage points, settling finally on a small, north facing plateau on the lower slopes of Kallidromus, about a hundred yards from the pod. As things went, it was comparatively rock-free, offered an excellent view of the Middle Gate, and was protected from behind by a small cliff wall.

We could do nothing more, because, as we had known it would, the weather began to change. The wind veered and became stronger. We swallowed even more dust and took refuge inside the pod. Our position was sheltered, but we knew a storm was coming. A big one. Every year, at this time, the notorious Hellespont wind would arrive and this year it was late.

The next day, the wind was gone but there was no relief. An oppressive stillness settled everywhere. The sky was like a bruise. All birds had disappeared. Clouds of choking dust hung in the air. The heat was massive, every movement a huge effort. With the benefit of hindsight, we knew this was, literally, the calm before the storm. We checked again that everything was secure, including ourselves, and waited it out. We could do nothing else. None of us could.

Towards nightfall, a screaming wind – the Hellesponter – came out of nowhere. The storm was spectacular. The sea boiled and crashed down on the narrow path. Foam flew skywards. I could taste salt on my lips, even all the way up here. Lightning split the sky in jagged flashes. Thunder crashed and boomed.

For the Spartans, this was good news. Their flank was safe. No Persian fleet could move in these waters.

The storm lasted the best part of two days. We took refuge in the pod, recorded what we could, and waited.

‘It’s like
Wuthering Heights
,’ said Markham.

We stared at him. ‘Which limb had you broken that time?’

‘Appendix.’

‘Ah.’

On the third day, I awoke from a restless sleep to find that the storm had blown itself out. It was still hot – steam curled from wet rocks as the sun appeared through the clouds, but the air was fresher. And that wasn’t the only benefit. Looking across to the bay, we could see pieces of driftwood bobbing about in the always-restless waves. Over there was a broken mast, still tangled in its own ropes. And another. Sodden sails twisted in the water. Broken oars littered the shoreline. The Persian ships, caught in the storm, would not be assisting Xerxes’ land forces at Thermopylae. They hadn’t fared well and now Xerxes, who had a huge army to provision, had a problem. He couldn’t afford to wait. He must move now.

We watched the Spartans spend what little was left of the day and most of the night making themselves and their weapons ready for battle. We catnapped, waking at the slightest sound.

Just before dawn, the Greek contingent marched forwards to the narrowest point of the path. Men spread themselves between the cliff wall and the sea. They stood easily, leaning on their spears, exchanging the odd word. Waiting.

‘Nervous?’ asked Peterson.

‘I wouldn’t think so. This is what they were born to do.’

‘Not them, imbecile.’

I paused. Was I?

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

‘Me too.’

‘Me three,’ said Markham. ‘Let’s not forget there’s a lot resting on this.’

‘You mean the fate of the western world?’

‘No, I mean my own much more important personal fate if I don’t get you back safely to Chief Farrell.’

‘I wouldn’t worry too much,’ said Peterson. ‘He’s known her a long time. His expectations won’t be high.’

‘Yeah, but I gave my word.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I said, slightly annoyed. ‘We’ll all be fine. We’re all the way up here. What could go wrong?’

What indeed?

At dawn on the fifth day, a vast, dirty cloud signified the approach of the Persian army. Even on the side of the mountain, we could feel the vibration of thousands and thousands and thousands of approaching feet. It was Xerxes’ proud boast that he would cause the land to shake at his approach and he certainly had achieved that. All around us, we could hear small stones tumbling as the tramp of his army dislodged them.

I had all my recorders trained on the Greeks. Peterson was doing the same to the Persians. Markham crouched off to one side, watching out for us. We were all wearing wide-brimmed hats, mottled grey and green fatigues to blend in, boots to prevent snake bites and scorpion stings, sunglasses, and four or five buckets each of sun cream. We could only hope no shepherd stumbled across us.

Below us, a single voice barked a command and there it was, miraculously assembled within seconds – the famous phalanx. Four densely packed ranks of men, stretching from one side of the path to the other. From the cliff to the sea. A mouse couldn’t have got past them. There were the crested helmets. There were the scarlet cloaks. There were the infamous bronze Spartan shields with their inverted V. They weighed about thirty pounds each and should a Spartan ever be careless enough to have lost his weapons, he could easily use it to bludgeon a man to death. No Spartan would lose his shield. You came home with it – or on it.