The Walled Orchard (34 page)

Eventually, I suppose, I got back to our camp. I remember arriving there, and I think there were people with me. Anyway, Callicrates was standing by the gate, with a deep cut over his left eye but very much alive. I remember being pleased to see he was still alive, but only moderately; nothing seemed to matter very much just then. It was exactly the feeling I had had during the plague, when I came out of the house and found everybody was dead; it must have been seeing Callicrates standing there that reminded me of it, I suppose. It was almost as if all the time between the plague and this moment had been some sort of dream from which I had just woken up, and that I was on my own again, set irremediably apart from everyone else by the mere fact that I had survived.

Callicrates had come running up to meet me — he was limping, I remember, and it looked as if running was painful to him; I wished he wouldn’t do it — and hugged me fiercely. I didn’t hug back; I just stood and stared at him.

‘Eupolis!’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

This seemed a very strange question to me, given that I was so obviously immortal. ‘Of course I am,’ I replied. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

‘You’re covered in blood,’ he said.

‘Oh, it’s not mine,’ I replied. ‘Somebody that Little Zeus killed. That reminds me, Little Zeus is dead. He’ll never enjoy his five acres now, poor sod.’

Callicrates stared at me. ‘Are you serious?’ he said.

‘Of course I am,’ I replied.

‘You said it like you were telling a joke,’ Callicrates said.

‘He’s dead all right,’ I told him. ‘Saw it with my own eyes.’

For a moment I thought Callicrates was going to be very angry with me — for being so callous, I suppose —and then I imagine he must have understood how I was feeling, though how he could understand it I don’t know. Anyway, neither of us said very much after that; except that I noticed that it was a rather pretty sunrise, and quoted the recurring line in Homer about Dawn, the rosy-fingered, which I detest and which always jars on me when I hear it. I washed my face and hands very carefully, as if it was something else besides dried blood I was washing away, and used a stone to beat out the jagged edge in the middle of my breastplate where the butt-spike had gone through it, so that it wouldn’t cut me. Of course, the spike hadn’t gone through to my skin at all; how could it? I was immortal after all. I went out to draw my rations and heard that some other friends of mine had been killed too, but the news meant nothing to me; it was like hearing that they had had a moderately good crop of silphium in Libya this year or something equally remote and meaningless.

The rest of the army trickled back in during the course of the morning; our losses had been heavy, since many of our men had gone off in the wrong direction and been ridden down by the enemy cavalry as soon as it was light enough for the cavalry to come out. I remember hearing that one very small allied contingent from a non-Greek city somewhere in the far south of Sicily had been completely wiped out except for a single man, and that for days afterwards he wandered round the camp looking completely lost, since there was no one left alive who could speak his language. I knew how he felt.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
he next day, heralds from the Syracusans came to announce a truce for collecting our dead without hindrance, according to the custom. They also thanked us for the vast amount of armour and weaponry which we had donated to the Syracusan war effort when we ran away; if we had any more, they said, they would be delighted to receive it, for although they now had more than enough for their own needs, including the construction of the appropriate trophies, they could always sell any surplus to their allies the Spartans.

I think the disaster at Epipolae must have turned Nicias’ brain for a while. For Demosthenes, who was no fool, saw that we no longer had any hope at all of capturing Syracuse, and that the best possible thing for us to do would be to go home while we still could. The Syracusans were clearly feeling quite unbearably cocky after their victory, and would probably make some attempt to fight us at sea, where we still had a theoretical superiority. But Nicias would have none of it; he said that he wasn’t going home without orders from Athens, since he would undoubtedly be tried and executed as soon as he set foot in the City and he was too old and too tired to defect to Sparta. Besides, he had reliable information from Syracuse that the oligarchic faction there (which was still quite strong) was seriously alarmed at the Democrats’ ascendancy after the victory, and would be prepared to help us in any way we wanted. How Nicias had heard this, given that it was only a matter of hours since the battle, nobody knew; but he was adamant that he wasn’t leading his army back, although Demosthenes could do what he liked. The two of them argued away for hours, with their junior colleagues Menander and Eurymedon contributing such helpful comments as ‘There are good arguments on both sides’ and ‘Don’t ask me, you deal with it.’

So we stayed where we were, and whiled away the time by collecting and burying our dead. That was a miserable business, as you can imagine, but for some reason it distressed me far less than it did my fellow soldiers. I did keep well away from the spot where Little Zeus was killed, but otherwise I just got on with the job, which was very hard work, as anyone who has done it will testify. But I do remember that instead of the rather splendid and dignified ceremony which the Athenians generally use when burying their fallen comrades, we simply dug a series of big round pits like granaries and pitched the bodies in; and that we hadn’t dug them deep enough, and that in the end we were so sick of the thing that we couldn’t be bothered to dig an extra pit to accommodate the left-over bodies, so we just crammed them in as best we could and covered them over with cairns of stones to keep the dogs off. A lot of people, Gallicrates among them, weren’t at all happy about doing it that way, but for my part I couldn’t have cared less.

I didn’t even have the heart to kick Aristophanes’ head in for him when I saw him the next day, although properly speaking it was my duty to do so. Needless to say, he had got deeply involved in the Impeach-the-Generals Campaign, which was preparing the prosecution and condemnation of Nicias, Demosthenes, Menander and Eurymedon for when we got home. There is invariably such a campaign whenever an Athenian army takes the field; it frequently starts before the first battle has been fought, and in extreme cases has appointed its chairman and governing body before the troop-ships have left Piraeus. Anyway, Aristophanes was in his element, going over the proposed list of charges with some experienced political litigants and polishing up his speech for the prosecution; they had drawn lots for it and he had only got Eurymedon, which must have been a disappointment to him. I rather fancy he had set his heart on prosecuting Nicias or Demosthenes, both of whom he had, in his time, fearlessly championed in the Theatre. Anyway, Aristophanes had the nerve to deny that he had so much as seen me in the battle, let alone been saved from death by my intervention.

Several days passed, and I think Demosthenes managed to talk Nicias round, saying that whatever happened to them their first duty was to the men under their command, whose safety must come first. That was the sort of talk to give Nicias, and soon there was a healthy rumour going round that we would soon be on our way home. As you can imagine, there was general rejoicing at that. The entire army had had enough of Sicily and even the Great Peloponnesian War itself; I think the reaction was so strong because of the tremendous feelings of hope and expectation with which we had all set out, and which had now turned into abject despair. Men started talking about the enemy again (no one had mentioned them since the battle) and a few fire-eaters were already talking about teaching the bastards a lesson next time. As the rumours grew more and more substantial, and only the hardened pessimists refused to believe them, the camp started to come back to life and be recognisably Athenian once again. Assured that they would soon be safe at home, men started saying that it was a shameful thing to be running away like this, and that what they should really do was stay and give it another go — preferably by daylight, and unquestionably at sea, where there had never been the remotest threat to our supremacy. So eloquently did they express this view (being Athenian) that some people were actually convinced by it, and said as much to Nicias. That set him off again; was it his duty to make one last attempt to salvage the pride and good name of his city? Could he be a party to such a monumental act of cowardice? Had the ships’ captains made their weekly rations returns? And so on.

But I assume we would have gone, had it not been for the eclipse. That was a stroke of bad luck, I think. Because, as I have told you, quite a few idiots had talked themselves into thinking that we ought to stay and fight at sea, the eclipse was widely taken to be a sign from the Goddess that we were being dishonourable in giving up the fight after one reverse. The longer it went on, the more people started to mutter, and Nicias (who was very superstitious) was quite unnerved.

Now I have my own theory about eclipses, which is as follows. Obviously they are signs from the Gods; I don’t have anything to do with the blasphemous fools like Socrates who say that they are natural and meaningless. But my argument is that there is only one sun, and that when there is an eclipse, the sun must be blacked out all over the world. It is therefore highly presumptuous and arrogant of any individual person, group or nation to hold that this particular eclipse is a sign to them as against anyone else. For all we know, the eclipse might be a sign from Hera to the Ethiopians, or Poseidon warning the Odomantians of an impending earthquake. In addition, it is only reasonable to expect that when the Gods choose to warn us they will use several different methods at the same time; an eclipse and a flight of birds, and possibly a prodigy and a malformed sacrificial victim as well, simply in order to let the recipients of the message know that it is intended for them. Otherwise the system would break down completely; people who have nothing to fear would immediately break off whatever they happen to be doing at the time (which cannot be the will of the Gods) while the intended recipients of the warning would take no notice, having learned from experience that the majority of eclipses never have any special significance for them at all. Unless the Gods so arrange things that all the nations of the earth get into trouble and need warning at exactly the same time, I think my explanation is the only rational one.

Be that as it may. The Athenians took this particular eclipse as a positive order from Athena herself not to abandon the expedition, and so the expedition was not abandoned. Nor was it prosecuted with anything remotely resembling enthusiasm, mind you; it just lay dormant for a while as Nicias and Demosthenes went back into emergency session to work out between them, in addition to their more immediate difficulties, the purposes of the immortal Gods.

For their part, the Syracusans had no doubt whatsoever about the significance of the eclipse. It told them, in no uncertain terms, that unless they got a move on and finished off the Athenians while they had them on their knees, they were going to be in severe trouble before too long. It is not inconceivable that this interpretation was the right one. The Syracusans bustled about with their ships, deliberately practising the various standard naval manoeuvres in full view of our forces. Opinions on the quality of the sea-power of our enemy differed in the Athenian camp. Some of us, myself included, believed that they were demonstrating a high degree of skill and expertise which ought finally to dissuade us from any further involvement with them, especially by sea. Those of us who knew or professed to know anything about naval warfare were of the opinion that the Syracusans knew as much about the science of fighting at sea, both theoretical and practical, as various domestic animals of their acquaintance. As might have been expected with a gathering of Athenians, a suitably ingenious compromise was reached between the exponents of both interpretations; namely that the Syracusans were indeed a formidable enemy at sea as well as on land, and that the inept display they had mounted for our benefit was designed to lull us into a false sense of superiority which would provoke us into a disastrous battle.

After a few days of training, they attempted a minor amphibious assault on part of our line, and succeeded in running off many of our small number of cavalry horses. Encouraged by this, they followed it up with a full-scale attack by land and sea. When the order came for our men on land to form up I pushed my way into the front rank, since I was keen to test my immortality theory, which had become something of an obsession with me since the night-battle. I can honestly say that once it was clear that there was going to be a battle, all fear left me; I seemed to feel a sort of morbid calm, and as we marched out towards the enemy I suddenly understood why. They couldn’t kill me; I was dead already. I had been dead for days, ever since Epipolae. Arguably I had been dead ever since the plague, except that at the time I had been too young to understand, and had never stopped moving long enough for rigor mortis to set in properly. I said as much to Callicrates, who looked at me most strangely and asked about the blow on the head I had received from the Syracusan whom Little Zeus had killed, so I could see that he could not understand.

The naval part of the battle was an utter disaster for our side, its only redeeming feature being the death, through his own incredible ineptitude, of our general Eurymedon. The defeat was not really mitigated by the fact that our land forces won a comparative victory (in which I, incidentally, played no part at all, since my section of the line was not engaged), in that we managed to prevent the Syracusans from burning those of our ships which they had not contrived to sink, and which had run for the cover of the shore.

 It was this defeat, I think, that finally broke the spirit of our army. An Athenian believes in his navy as men believe in gods; and it was as if some ill-natured person —Socrates, say, or Diagoras the Melian — had just conclusively and irrefutably proved that the Gods do not exist. After the battle was over, everyone in the camp seemed utterly dejected. There was no panic or hysteria, just a total acceptance of the defeat. It was far worse than it had been after Epipolae; then, there had been fear and anger and considerable pain, but people had at least been busy, what with burying the dead and plotting against the Generals and looking after the wounded and having bad dreams at night. Now, nobody seemed interested in any form of activity. The dead bodies of our men bobbed up and down in the water of the harbour, but nobody could be bothered to take a boat out and pick them up. Nobody muttered about Nicias or Demosthenes. The wounded men were left to look after themselves, and many of them died — did I mention that our camp was in a fever-trap? —and nobody had any dreams at all, not even dreams of home. I tried to explain to everyone that this was in fact perfectly natural, since they were now all dead too. But such was the general apathy that nobody could be bothered to argue; and when Athenians refuse an argument, you can be sure that something is wrong.

A day or so after this, I was eating my meal (a pint of barley porridge and four olives) in solitary silence when someone came running into the middle of the camp waving his arms and shouting. Several people asked him mildly to stop, since they were trying to sleep, but this only seemed to encourage him. Finally, someone thought to ask him what the matter was, and he replied that the Syracusans were blocking the entrance to the harbour.

It took about half a minute for the significance of this to sink in; then there was the most extraordinary display of panic that I have ever been fortunate enough to witness. I expect you’ve seen an ants’ nest when the woman of the house pours boiling water into it; well, that’s the nearest thing I can think of to the Athenian camp at that moment. I was utterly fascinated by the sight, and I remember thinking that all the dead people had suddenly come back to life; which was rather pointless, because if the Syracusans blocked the harbour they would all be dead again very soon. Now I come to think of it, I didn’t panic at all; I sat there speculating what a good Chorus scene this would make — like that scene in the
Agamemnon
where the Chorus suddenly loses its unified voice and collapses into a group of gibbering individuals. No one had ever done it in a Comedy; it would be hell on earth to rehearse, of course, but the effect would be spectacular. Then I remembered that I wouldn’t be going home to Athens after all, and there would be no more plays, if the Syracusans succeeded in blocking the harbour. It seemed a pity, but not much more.