fish.’
Upper Egypt is a landlocked country so I have never had the opportunity to spend enough time on the open sea to have witnessed a tuna migration of this magnitude. I had read so much about the subject that I should have known what was happening. I realized that I was in danger of looking ridiculous, so I opened my eyes and yelled as loudly as Zaras, ‘Of course they are tuna. Get the harpoons ready!’
I had noticed the harpoons when I came aboard for the first time. They were stowed under the rowing benches. I had supposed that they were used to repel pirates and corsairs if they tried to board the ship. The shafts were about twice as long as a tall man. The heads were of razor-sharp flint. There was an eye behind the barb to which the coir line was spliced. And at the other end of the line was tied a carved wooded float.
Although I had given the order for harpoons, it was typical of Zaras that he was the first of any of them to act upon it. He always led by his own example.
He snatched one of the long weapons from where it had been strapped under the thwart, and as he ran with it to the ship’s side he unwrapped the retaining line. He jumped up on to the gunwale of the galley and balanced the long harpoon easily, with the shaft resting on his shoulder and the barbed flint head pointing down at the flashing shoal of fish that was streaming past him like a river of molten silver. They looked up at him with great round eyes that seemed to be dilated with terror.
I watched him gather himself and then hurl the harpoon, point first, straight down into the water below him. The shaft of the heavy weapon shuddered as the point struck and the harpoon was whipped away below the surface by the rush of the huge fish that was impaled by the flint point.
Zaras jumped back on to the deck and seized the running line as it streamed away, blurring with speed and beginning to smoke with the friction of the coarse rope against the wood of the gunwale. Three other men of the crew leaped forward to help him and they latched on to the rope and battled to subdue the fish and bring it alongside.
Four other men had followed Zaras’ example and each of them grabbed a harpoon from its place below the thwarts and ran with it to the gunwale. Soon there were knots of struggling men on each side of the boat, shouting with excitement, swearing and bellowing incoherent orders at each other as they struggled with the massive creatures.
One after another the fish were heaved on board and clubbed to death. Before the last of the harpooned fish had been killed and butchered, the rest of the mighty shoal had disappeared back into the depths as suddenly and miraculously as they had appeared.
We went ashore again that night, and by the light of the cooking fires on the beach we feasted on the succulent flesh of the tuna. It is the most highly prized delicacy in all the seas. The men seasoned the flesh with just a little salt. Some of them could not wait for it to be thrown on the coals, and they wolfed it down raw and bleeding. Then they followed it with a swallow from the wine-skins.
I knew that the next morning they would be strong and eager for the first sight of the enemy. Unlike corn or other insipid foods, meat rouses the demon in the heart of a warrior.
So that night I sang for them ‘The Ballad of Tanus and the Blue Sword’. It is the battle hymn of the Blues, and it set them afire. Every man joined in the chorus, no matter how rough his voice, and afterwards I could see the light of war shining in their eyes. They were ready to meet any enemy.
We launched the galleys again the next morning as soon as it was light enough to make out the reefs below the surface, and to find a safe passage through them.
The closer we came to the many mouths of the Nile Delta the more certain I became of our position, until in the late afternoon we sailed past an estuarine mouth which was bounded on the east side by a low forested headland and on the west by an exposed mud-bank. On the headland facing the sea stood a rudimentary tower of mud-bricks that were painted with limewash. The roof of the tower had collapsed, as had most of the wall on the seaward side of the construction. However, enough of it was still standing for me to be certain that this was the navigational marker for the Tamiat channel, probably erected there by some long-dead Egyptian mariner.
I ran to the foot of the single mast and clambered up it until I reached the sloping yard of the lateen sail. I wrapped my legs around it and hugged the mainmast. From this vantage I had a clear view inland and I immediately picked up the square outline of a man-made structure which just showed above the treetops far inland. Like the channel marker it also was painted with limewash. I was in no doubt at all that this was the watchtower of the Minoan trading fort and treasury which we were seeking. I slid back down the yard and as my feet hit the deck I shouted at the helmsman: ‘Put up your helm! Turn three points to starboard!’
Zaras strode across to where I stood. ‘Yes?’ he asked. Usually he is genial and gregarious, but at a time such as this he becomes a man of quick decisions and even quicker reactions.
‘Yes!’ I agreed, and he gave a brief cold smile and a curt nod to the helm to confirm my order. We turned out towards the open sea. The other two galleys followed us around. Now we headed obliquely away from the shore. However, as soon as we passed the next headland and were screened from the surveillance of any sentry on the tower of the Tamiat fortress, I ordered another change of course. We headed back directly towards the labyrinthine swamps of the delta.
I knew from my map where to find what looked to be a secure anchorage. We lowered the masts and laid them flat on the decks while we poled our way through the dense banks of papyrus and bulrushes into the sheltered lagoon that I had chosen. Here we were completely screened by dense vegetation. We anchored a boat’s length apart in the shallow murky water with our keels only just clear of the mud of the bottom. We were able to wade between the boats with the water at the deepest parts of the lagoon reaching only as high as our chins.
While we watched the sun set and the moon rise, the men feasted on what remained of the smoked tuna steaks. Zaras waded quietly from galley to galley, selecting eight of his best men and warning them to be ready before sunrise the next morning to accompany us on a reconnaissance.
An hour before dawn we crowded into two of the skiffs that we had towed behind the galleys. We paddled across the wide lagoon to the shore nearest the headland on which I had spotted the watchtower of the fort.
I could hear the cries of swamp birds and the susurration of their wings passing over us in the darkness. As the light strengthened I could make out the long flighting lines of waterfowl and their arrowhead formations against the brightening sky. There were wild ducks and geese, storks, herons, cranes with long necks and trailing legs, ibis and egrets and fifty or more other species. They rose in huge flocks from the surface of the lagoon as we rowed through them. At last the sun pushed itself above the horizon and the vast expanses of the delta around us were revealed. It is a wild and desolate place, unfit for human habitation.
We had to drag the skiffs through the shallows and hide them in the reeds when we at last reached firmer ground. I was uncertain of the layout of the fort and its surroundings so we groped our way through the dense stands of reeds and bulrushes ever more cautiously.
Abruptly we came out upon the bank of a deep channel which cut through the papyrus beds from the south in the direction of the open waters of the Middle Sea. It was about 150 paces wide, and I could see that it was too deep to wade. On the opposite bank of the channel I was able to make out the flat roof of the watchtower we had spotted the previous day. The helmeted heads of at least three of the guards were showing above the parapet as they patrolled their beats.
Suddenly I heard the unmistakable sounds of a moving vessel coming up the channel from the seaward direction of where we lay, and I cautioned my companions to silence. The creaking of the rigging, the voice of the seaman chanting
