‘That’s better.’ Rufus stared at his men. ‘We don’t know how long it’s going to take to catch the enemy. That water in your canteen is all that you have. You try even a sip of this liquid shit we’re wading through and you won’t have a dry arse for a month. If you live that long. So, you only drink from your canteen, and only when I say so. Is that clear?’

The men nodded.

‘Then pick up your shields and let’s move.’

Cato regarded the centurion with approval. Rufus was clearly old school despite a relatively soft posting to Egypt where the legions had not had to participate in a major campaign in living memory. His tone, bearing and the scars on his arms and face marked him out as a professional soldier, much like Macro, Cato decided.

There was a swirl in the rushes close by and a splashing as something large lunged towards Cato. He turned and crouched as he ripped out his sword and raised his shield. A hideous dark shape, water glistening on its knotted hide, burst from between the reeds and a long tooth-lined jaw opened and snapped down on the shoulder of the dead man. Cato froze for an instant, and before he could react the beast lurched back, dragging the corpse with it. There was a last blur of movement, and a leg jerked lifelessly and then the monster and the body were gone. Only the disturbed water, swaying reeds and the rapidly fading sound of splashing remained.

Cato swallowed, and stared at Rufus wide-eyed. ‘What the hell was that?’ he muttered.

‘Crocodile,’ the centurion replied, warily watching the spot where the beast had disappeared, as if it might return at any moment.

‘Crocodile?’ Although Cato had been warned about them this was the first he had seen up close.

Rufus nodded. ‘They live on the Nile, and here in the delta.’

‘So I’ve heard.’ Cato slowly straightened up. ‘Not too thick on the ground, I trust?’

Rufus slapped his cheek. ‘Not as thickly as the insects . . . But there are enough of them about to cause a problem. The natives tend to keep away from them.’

‘No surprises there.’

‘Even so, the crocodiles take the odd peasant, or their mules.’

‘They don’t hunt them?’

Rufus smiled thinly. ‘Who would want to? Besides, they’re sacred to the natives.’

‘Sacred?’

Rufus looked surprised. ‘You’ve been aboard the Sobek for two months and you haven’t worked that out, sir?’

‘What?’ Cato responded irritably.

‘Sobek is the name of their crocodile god, sir.’

Cato frowned, cross with himself not to have made the connection. ‘Well, if any of them get that close to me again, I may be up for a little sacrilege.’