At which moment I too went down. Someone’s lucky spear-cast lodged in the back of my calf a little below the hamstrings. My Ithakans surrounded me until I could pull it out, but the head was barbed and took a great chunk of flesh with it. Losing blood fast, I had to waste time binding the blood vessels closed with a strip from some dead man’s shift.

Menelaos and his Spartans came to reinforce us; I managed to fight my way to his side. Ajax appeared, and the two of them stepped aside to let me dodge down behind Menelaos’s chariot. A glorious warrior, Ajax! His blood fired, he laid about him with a strength I could never have mustered and forced the Trojans back, his Salaminians, as always, so proud of him that they went with him anywhere. Some Trojan leader responded by pushing more men in until they were jammed against Ajax’s axe by sheer weight from behind. Faster than our struggling soldiers and the mighty Ajax could mow them down, they sprang up again like the soldiers of the Dragon’s teeth.

Thankful to see that Hektor had disappeared, I had made myself useful by calling for a concentration of strength in the area. Eurypylos was the closest, and came in from one side: just in time to collect one of Paris’s arrows in his shoulder. Machaon was coming up too, and met the same fate. Paris. What a worm. He wasted no arrows on common men; he simply lurked somewhere safe and comfortable and waited for a prince at least. In which he differed from Teukros, who shot at any target.

Somehow I managed to get behind the lines at last, to find Podalieros tending Agamemnon and Diomedes, who waited disconsolately as close to the venue as they dared. Horrified, they took in the sight of me, Machaon and Eurypylos.

‘Why must you fight, brother?’ Podalieros demanded through his teeth as he lowered Machaon to the ground.

‘See to Odysseus first,’ gasped Machaon, the stump of an arrow in his arm bleeding sluggishly.

So I had my wound packed and bound first; Podalieros went to Eurypylos then, electing to push the arrow through for fear it would do more damage inside the shoulder if it were pulled out the same way it had gone in.

‘Where’s Teukros?’ I asked, sinking down beside Diomedes.

‘I sent him off the field a while ago,’ said Machaon, still waiting his turn. ‘The blow Hektor dealt him yesterday swelled to the size of the rock Hektor hit him with. I had to tap the lump and drain some of the fluid off. His arm was quite paralysed, but he can move it again now.’

‘Our ranks are thinning,’ I said.

‘Too thin,’ said Agamemnon grimly. ‘The soldiers know it too. Can’t you feel the change?’

‘Yes, I can,’ I said, getting to my feet and testing my leg. ‘I suggest we move ourselves back to camp before we become caught up in a panic. The army will break for the beach soon, I think.’

Though it had been I responsible for it, I found the retreat a blow nonetheless. Too few of the Kings were left to hold the men together; of the major leaders only Ajax, Menelaos and Idomeneus were left. One section of our line broke; the rot spread with astonishing speed. Suddenly the whole army turned and fled for the safety of our camp. Hektor shrieked so loudly that I heard him from where I stood atop our wall, then the Trojans were baying in pursuit like starving dogs. Our men were still pouring in across the Simois causeway with the Trojans attacking their rear when Agamemnon, white-faced, issued his orders. The gate was closed before the last – and the most gallant – could get in. I stopped my ears and closed my eyes. Your fault, Odysseus! All your fault.

Too early in the day for a cease to battle. Hektor would try for our wall. Milling about inside the camp, our troops took some time to rally and understand that their job now was to defend the fortifications. Slaves flew about boiling great cauldrons and urns of water to pour down on the heads of those who would attempt to scale the wall; we didn’t dare use oil for fear that the wall would end in burning. Stones were already piled along its top, stacked there for just such an emergency years ago.

The thwarted Trojans massed along the trench, leaders rolling up and down in their chariots, urging men to take up their ranks again. Hektor drove in his golden car with his old driver, Kebriones, at the reins. Even after days of bitter conflict he looked erect and confident. As well he should. I propped my chin on my hands as our own men began to fill the spaces around me on top of the wall, and settled down to see how Hektor meant to storm us: whether he was willing to sacrifice many, or whether he had a better scheme in mind than simple brute force.

26

NARRATED BY

Hektor

I penned them within their own defences like sheep; victory lay curled in the hollow of my hand. I, who had lived behind walls since the day of my birth, knew better than any other man alive how to attack them. No walls save those of Troy itself were invulnerable. This was my moment. I gloried in Agamemnon’s defeat, vowing I would make that proud man feel the despair we had endured ever since his thousand ships sailed out from behind Tenedos. Heads lined their pathetic wall as I drove with Polydamas beside me in my car. Kebriones had gone to find water for the horses, good man.

‘What do you think?’ I asked Polydamas.

‘Well, we face no Troy, but they’re tricky ramparts, Hektor. The two causeways so widely separated are clever. So are the trench and the palisade. Can you see their mistake?’

‘Oh, yes. The gap between the wall and the trench is too wide,’ I answered. ‘We’ll use their causeways, but not to attack their gates. We’ll use them to cross the palisade and trench, then swing our men in behind the trench to attack the wall itself. The stone hereabouts isn’t easy to quarry, so they had to build in wood except for their watchtowers and buttresses.’

Palamedes nodded. ‘Yes, I’d do the same, Hektor. Shall I send back to Troy for combustibles?’

‘At once – anything that will burn, even ordinary cooking fat. While you do that, I’ll call an assembly of my leaders,’ I said.

When Paris – last to arrive, as always – strolled up, I told the group what I intended to do.

‘Two thirds of the army will come in across the Simois causeway, one third across at Skamader. I’m going to divide the troops into five segments. I’ll lead the first, with Polydamas. Paris, you’ll take the second. Helenos, you’ll take the third, with Deiphobos. We three will come in here at Simois. Aineas, you’ll take the fourth section across at Skamander. Sarpedon and Glaukos will also use Skamander.’

Helenos was beaming because I had preferred to put him in charge than Deiphobos, who couldn’t make up his mind whether he was angrier at that slight, or at the fact that Paris had been given his own division. Nor was Aineas very happy at being lumped in with Sarpedon and Glaukos as a foreigner.

‘As the men reach the inside ends of the causeways they’ll turn to walk towards each other, Simois to Skamander, until they fill all of the space along the wall between it and the trench. In the meantime the noncombatants can be dismantling the palisade and turning it into ladders and firewood. Fire is our best tool. Fire will bring their wall down. So our first job will be to start those fires and make it impossible for the defenders to put them out.’

Among the leaders was my cousin Asios, always a thorn in my side because he never wanted to follow orders.

‘Hektor,’ he said, too loudly, ‘do you intend to abandon your cavalry?’

‘Yes,’ I said without hesitation. ‘What use can it be? The last thing we need are horses and chariots in an enclosed space.’

‘What about attacking the gates?’

‘They’re too easily defended, Asios.’

He snorted. ‘Rubbish! Here, let me show you!’