“It won’t be long before they start making direct hits.”
“How many ships are firing at us?”
“Five Sir. The others are out of range.”
Everywhere around Caesar’s men were rushing for the artillery weapons, ratchets frantically being worked.
“It’ll take our men just a few moments to get our artillery set up sir.”
Julius looked towards the lighthouse and saw hundreds of his men rushing down to the beach to join the fight, shouting out to be picked up.
“Should we go and get them?”
Julius glanced at the enemy ships.
“No. If we move further back the Alexandrians will sail into the harbour and pin us in. No Agrippa. Tell your men to leave the artillery and man the oars.”
“Man the oars?”
“Yes. If we move towards them we’ll be too close for their weapons. We’ll drive them back. Whatever we do we must not let them any closer to the lighthouse.
“Man the oars!” Agrippa roared.
Amidst huge blocks of stone crashing into the sea men stopped what they were doing and rushed below decks. The large barrel chested oarsmaster ran up. Despite the missiles raining down he stood erect.
“We’re going to attack! Ramming speed!” Agrippa shouted.
“Yes sir.”
The man went below.
Julius now stood tall on the deck. He could see the Egyptians on their ships frantically adjusting their weapons. One direct hit crashed into a small fishing boat that had somehow got left behind. The boat rocked violently and capsized as the stone slid off and both sank to the deep.
Caesar heard the drum below deck begin. He looked over the side and saw the oars lowering into the water. There was a short silence. Then as one they pulled water, came out, returned to the start and came back again. It took several sweeps of the oars to get the ship moving but once they bit into the sea she picked up speed.
On the deck of the largest Alexandrian warship her commander Ibn Benghazi turned to his first officer, who said.
“What are the Romans doing? They must see that there is no escape for them.”
“They know there is no escape. No. this Roman is playing a game of cat and mouse with us. It’s an idle threat.”
They watched as Caesar’s standard was raised, letting all know who was on board.
“So the great butcher himself challenges us,” Benghazi said, “Maintain our position. Let’s see what the barbarian has in mind.”
“Maintain position!” the first officer shouted.
“Maintain position,” the order was relayed to the other ships.
Caesar watched as the oars dipped into the sea again. Now his ship was picking up speed. The enemy artillery had so far had no impact on the Roman ships. Now a direct hit on Julius’ ship sent men diving for cover. The large stone clattered and crashed heavily along the deck splintering wood like matchsticks and turning two men into mincemeat. The force of the blow causing the ship to momentarily wobble, pulling the steering oars out of the helmsman’s grip. The ship lurched and one row of oars pulled at air instead of water and for a moment the rowers were thrown off balance. Caesar and Agrippa were forced to hold on to keep their footing. The drum master stopped his drumming long enough for the rowers to compose themselves. Then he started up again.
“Row!”
Thump! Thump!
“Row!”
Thump! Thump!
They soon picked up the pace again and the ship was moving cleanly through the harbour.
Julius tore his eyes away from the two, mangled, men that lay on the deck to gauge the distance to the enemy.
Four hundred yards. Three fifty. Three hundred.
“Ramming speed!” Agrippa shouted to the officer in charge.
“Ramming speed!”
The drum master picked up the pace.
Two hundred and fifty yards. Now the enemy artillery fell silent.
“He’s coming straight at us!” the Alexandrian officer shouted, “He’s going to ram us!”
On the Roman galley everyone but Julius Caesar had prepared themselves for impact. Agrippa had wound his foot around some ropes and locked his arms through rigging. He had watched with one eyebrow raised as Caesar had stood calmly on the deck and had gazed up, apparently, at seagulls high in the sky. Agrippa could only imagine at what the impact would do to Caesar’s unprotected position.
’The force of it will kill him,’ he said to himself.
From where he waited he could see the tall mast of the enemy ship get closer and higher.
At one hundred yards distance he decided to watch until he could watch no longer, turning his head at the last moment to avoid seeing his