They were free men of Athens, but they accepted the authority of the Assembly for the highest stakes. No one let his neighbours take the burden, not with parents, wives and children left behind and depending on them. Xanthippus could see it in each of them – and found himself inspired by it. They strove together, against a common enemy.

In the late afternoon, Themistocles ordered the fleet to put oars out. To a drumbeat, the sails were dropped and tied into packs, taken down to the holds. With the decks clear, the masts were unstepped, great wedges hammered out so the lengths of pine could be lowered after them, into the arms of oarsmen. Some ships secured the mast with iron hoops and rope, so that it formed one edge of the deck, like a stub rail.

The transformation never failed to make Xanthippus’ heart pound. The oars were stored lengthways in the hold, like old bones. The three banks of men below were expert in their labours and could ease them up, across and out in moments, the result of endless hours of training. Each ship briefly became a clumsy thing without its sails, then suddenly soared back to life, as sun-bleached wings struck the waters. The first strokes made light of skills they had won over months or years. Oarsmen worked in perfect unison and if one fouled another through drunkenness or lack of care, he risked a beating that night, or even being cast overboard on a late watch, when all else was silent. Their task was to row at whatever speed was asked; to work one bank while the other reversed, so that a ship could turn inside its own length. They could not see more than the waves rushing past on either side and they had to trust the officers standing on the deck and roaring orders to the keleustes of each ship. Only that man, standing with his head and shoulders out on the deck, could see the action all around. Those below laboured on in trust and pain and perspiration flung from wet hair.

The flagship carried Themistocles, the city banner of an owl streaming from his ship’s high stern like a long tongue. Xanthippus saw his own captain keeping an eye on it. He too watched for a steer and orders as the sun began to ease down to the horizon.

When Themistocles swung off the main course, Xanthippus felt the trierarch’s gaze on him and nodded. The man had given him no trouble at all since their first clash of wills on that very deck. As one, the fleet slowed to half pace and used the tillers at the stern to begin long gentle turns closer to the coast.

They had passed the great headland, into waters where the motion of the deep sea was different, rolling the whole ship. The next great landing place was one Xanthippus had thought Themistocles would leave in their wake: Marathon, where the beach was sheltered by the great spit of land that had included Eretria. Themistocles was heading to a spring a little further along that part of the coast, a place the fleet knew well from a dozen previous landings. The casks were full that day, so Xanthippus thought they would just stop for the night, safe from a sudden squall.