Cato turned his head to look, and might have missed it had he not been looking for the enemy ship. A faint sliver of shadow against the haze that lingered across the mainland. The mast of a ship. Then he saw another a short distance behind. Ajax was making a run for it. Looking ahead, Cato saw that the headland bowed out to sea and he realised, with a sick feeling, that Ajax might reach the entrance to the bay before the Sobek.

‘Increase our speed!’ he called down to the trierarch. Phermon looked up and shook his head.

‘Sir, the crew have been rowing flat out for the best part of an hour. They’re spent.’

‘I don’t give a damn about that. Order them to row faster.’

‘They can’t,’ the trierarch replied firmly. ‘You’ve exhausted them, sir.’

Cato gritted his teeth in anger. The trierarch was right. He had been desperate to reach the harbour as swiftly as he could, and now the crew had no reserve of strength to draw on at the critical moment. By contrast, Ajax’s men were still fresh and as Cato watched the masts of his enemy’s ships, he could see that they were gradually pulling ahead. More galling still, they had the advantage of the inside track as they raced across the bay towards the tip of the headland. He thumped a fist on the rail of the turret in frustration. He took a deep breath and spoke as calmly as he could to the trierarch. ‘Have your men do the best they can. One last effort is all I ask of them.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The trierarch saluted and made his way aft to the main hatch and descended below deck to urge his men on.

Cato turned his attention back to the two masts edging ahead of the Sobek on the other side of the headland. They would soon be abreast of the watchtower and then reach the open sea and make their escape. The Roman ships would attempt a pursuit, but barring a miracle Ajax and his men would get away, Cato realised bitterly.

A faint movement attracted his attention and he saw a thin dark smudge in the air above the watchtower. There was a brief eddy of smoke and then it settled into a steady trail, climbing into the clear sky. Cato frowned at this new development, but Macro and his men were safe enough now that the enemy was on the run. They could afford to let the tower burn. But even as he was thinking this, Cato realised that the smoke was too localised. A moment later there was a bright flare and a thin trail of smoke arced out from the top of the tower towards the two ships approaching from inside the bay. Another trail quickly followed the first before Cato realised what was happening.

‘Bolt throwers.’ He smiled to himself. ‘Macro’s using incendiaries. Clever bastard.’