The second Persian crew tried to lose themselves in the chaos of ships. They had managed a turn, though Themistocles could see one side had been oar-stripped already, which explained their slow speed. Some Greek ram had glanced off and slid all the way down, killing every man on one side who held an oar. After that, the ship could only man one seat in two, shifting rowers and oars across. They limped away, too slow to escape. Themistocles found himself grinning as his trierarch turned the ship to follow them. A stern chase was usually a long chase, but perhaps not when the enemy had a hold full of corpses and broken oars.

In the lull, he looked over the battlefield again, just as he might have done on land. When he had fought as a strategos, he had kept a picture of the great action in his mind as best he could. Some men’s view of the line shrank to just their place in it, to those who stood on either side and faced them. Yet a leader had to see further – and the same held true at sea.

The Persians had brought a huge fleet to that place. Only the narrow waters of the strait kept Greece in the battle, Themistocles could see that. As things stood, the enemy could simply not bring their overwhelming advantage to bear. The evacuation to Salamis might have bought a respite for the people of Athens, but the enemy were still too many! Ship by ship, the Persians would grind down the allied force. That was the greater picture. The forty brave ships of Corinth had lost half their number. Dozens of Athenian galleys had been sunk or boarded and burned. They had suffered worse and taken down more of the enemy, fighting like madmen while their women and children watched. He wondered if the people of Troy had stared from their battlements with the same fear and helpless wonder. The destruction at Salamis was equally terrible. In places, the water was covered in a slick of splinters and corpses, so that the prow nosed bodies as they rowed through.