SHE HAS NEVER been around animals much, unless you count the peacocks in her father’s garden. She has certainly never seen an elephant close up before and she is appalled. The noise they make is terrifying, they all stink and every one of them is the size of a house.
Ravi stands there watching her, slapping the elephant hook against his thigh. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Mucking out.’
‘You don’t look like you know which end of the shovel to hold. What’s wrong with you, boy?’
‘I’m doing the best I can.’
‘A girl could do better.’ He pinches the flesh of her arm. ‘Look at you. You need to toughen up.’
She would hit him with the shovel but she does not know which end to hold. Damn these people. She has had enough.
‘Don’t stand there,’ he says and shoves her to the side. ‘You stand behind him and he can’t see you. He’ll squash you like an ant.’
‘I can’t do this.’
‘Why not?’
‘Look at me! I’m not used to this kind of work.’
He slaps his knee and laughs so hard she thinks he is going to fall over.
Don’t let him bait you. It doesn’t matter about the names he calls you. Keep your head down and don’t ask for trouble.
When he’s done laughing, Ravi grabs her hands and examines them. They are raw and blisters are starting to form already. It’s only the first morning.
‘Piss on them,’ he says. ‘It will harden them up.’
My father would have you horsewhipped if he heard you, she thinks. He’d as likely piss on you. She cannot believe anyone would think such a thing, never mind say it aloud. This is impossible. She wishes she were dead.
‘How old are you?’
She hesitates. ‘Fourteen.’
‘No wonder you look like a girl. Maybe you’ll get some muscle when your balls drop.’
‘When do we get some rest?’
‘Rest? That’s just one elephant. You haven’t started yet. Gaji’s soft, he should take the whip to you.’
Am I not sweeping up this monster’s droppings fast enough? Take one cart of it away, there is always more. ‘How’s Catharo?’ she asks him.
‘That fucking dwarf? He’s alive. Cost me three siglos. I bet Gaji he wouldn’t make it through the night. He’s a tough little fellow.’
‘Why did – what did you call him?’
‘Gaji.’
‘Why did he save us?’
‘I don’t know. He’s like that. You never know what he’ll do. Like this one,’ and he slaps the monster on the side. ‘So be careful of him or they’ll be sweeping you up and putting you in the cart. That’s why he has a bell round his neck, so you know he’s there. Be nice to him, he has a temper.’
‘Has he killed many men?’
‘Colossus? He’s not so bad. Just don’t make him angry. The last captain we had took to him with the bull hook and he went crazy. If it wasn’t for Gaji he would have destroyed the whole camp.’
Later that day the order comes to get the elephants out of the city. She straggles behind as they march them over Alexander’s causeway. She cannot believe it has come to this. The other dung larks, as this is what Ravi calls them, push her around and taunt her in some language she does not even know. When Catharo dies, she will be on her own. There has to be a way out of this.
They take the elephants down to the lake for their bath. The elephants love the water, Ravi tells her. When we can, we bath them at least once a day.
They form up a procession, each elephant holding the tail of the one before. The water is torpid and brown; the elephants plunge in trumpeting and the boys set to work with the pumice, scrubbing them like naughty children.
The one they call Colossus is a massive beast with ragged ears and a scarred hide. He makes a great trumpeting as he sinks to his haunches in the river, spraying water joyously in the air with his trunk. Up close his skin does not even look alive; it is so grey and withered it is like something you might find hanging cured upon a wall. He is enormous; the height of two men and the size of a small palace.
But it is his eyes that astonish her. They watch her intently, not with the brute indifference of a beast of the field but as if he knows what she is thinking.
She stands dumb, exhausted, at the bank, every bone and sinew creaking. She cannot take much more of this. Will no one in this place show her kindness?
Colossus reaches out for her with his trunk, and at first she is too frightened to move. He leaves a trail of slime all down her face and her chest and she yells in disgust, and plunges into the river to get it off.
She sinks to her knees in the shallows, drained. She can’t do this. She’s not built for it. Her whole family is dead and she is a slave. Even these dumb monsters abuse her. She shouts at the elephant, who just yawns as if he is laughing at her.
‘I shouldn’t have let them go on the ship alone,’ she says. Her husband would not let her come because she was so sick with the unborn baby. ‘I’ll only be away three weeks, four at most,’ he had said. That was a rich joke for the gods. How they must hate us up there.
There were days after her baby died that she woke in the morning feeling light, sometimes even happy. But then she would remember and with each remembrance she tried to reach for sleep again, huddle inside her dreams like she was hiding from some intruder in her house. There were too many days when she’d longed for oblivion; now her father’s dwarf and this wretched Indian have snatched it away from her.
They are around a bend in the river and cannot be seen by the others, though she can hear the shouts and laughing as the waterboys scrub their elephants. A great tree limb floats past in the water and she grabs it.
It’s heavy. It’s as much as she can do to swing it, but she does. She slams it into the monster’s haunch. ‘Colossus! Is that what they call you? Well, come on then!’ She hits him again, as hard as she can. ‘Come on! They say you don’t like being hit.’ She swings again. ‘Look at me! See what I’m doing?’ She swings a third time, slamming the heavy limb into his rump. ‘Come on! Where’s this famous bad temper? What’s wrong with you? Come on!’ She hits him again and again, until her arm muscles cramp and she drops exhausted back to her knees, sobbing.
The massive trunk snakes out towards her. She closes her eyes. This is it. Make it merciful and quick, she thinks. Instead the beast wrenches the tree limb from her grasp and sends it spinning end over end to land with a splash in the river.
She feels a rubbery trunk curl around her body and pick her up. He deposits her on the river sand and stands over her, staring at her with one sad pink eye. She notices his eyelashes for the first time, how thick and wiry they are, and how his wrinkles criss-cross his skin. She reaches out to touch him but he turns and wades away in the direction of his fellows, blasting water over his back as he goes.
It is a dull morning, grey and hot. The clouds suffocate and are greasy pale like the dead. But how brightly Alexander shines; how eager his blue eyes. He glitters like a newly minted coin.
There is a huddle around him, as always, he is the air that others breathe. Nearchus is there, he looks like a hawk with that beak of his and hunter’s eyes, hazel and vicious. A harried man with badly aligned teeth and his hand on his sword.
At his signal they all retire a step, their heads craning.
Alexander is praying before Baal-Ammon, offering a skinned beast; at least he hopes it is a beast. He smiles as Gajendra enters, as if to say: here is the man I have waited my entire life to see.
‘Ah, elephant boy! You know this god? His name is Baal. My advisers tell me that really he is Zeus, in another form. He is the god of the thunderstorm.’
The god stands, arms outstretched, hands pointing to the pit where sacrificial victims are burned. The temple is strangely bare. Perhaps it has been looted. There are a few benches, a gorilla skin hanging on the wall. Frankincense burns in mounds as big as ox carts.
Baal makes the other generals look small and peevish. He has a thunderous expression, while these men just look like schoolboys who cannot get what they want.
‘They give their firstborn to the gods, they say, in times of war and famine. I wonder how many firstborns gave their lives needlessly to stay me? If they had but known. You cannot ask a god to work against his own son.’
He gets to his feet, jumps up beside Baal on his plinth to mimic his frown. There is a shudder through the corps of those who attend him. This blasphemy shocks them. You should not even mock a god you do not believe in, for you never know.
‘Do you not think I should make a fine Baal, elephant boy? I think I should like to be asked for my favour a hundred years from now. To have someone pray to my statue, now that is something to be wished for, isn’t it? We are here for but a short time but we may be remembered forever if we live this life with courage and ambition. Do you not think so?’
Alexander laughs and jumps down to the marble. There is such restlessness about him today, he cannot stay still for a moment as he talks. He takes out his knife and stirs the incense coals with the edge of the blade, breathing it in.
‘Some men say that I am Hercules brought back to life. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know much about him.’
‘He was a god. Do you think I’m a god?’
He can feel the other generals’ eyes on him. If Gajendra says yes, they will set on him like a pack of wolves. Alexander seems to be the only one who cannot feel the tension.
‘Come on now, answer. I rule half the world. I am invincible in battle.’
‘But are gods not immortal?’
‘Perhaps I am immortal. Until a man dies how can anyone be sure?’ His flatterers laugh. No one else. ‘My father saw my mother consorting with Zeus, did you know that? In the form of a serpent. Gods are shape shifters, elephant boy, or they are in our world.’ He pats him on the shoulder, like a son, lowers his voice. ‘Nearchus wants your head, you know. He says you are uppity. An uppity Indian.’ He laughs. ‘Nothing worse.’
‘Why would he say that?’ Gajendra says, staring at Nearchus.
‘Oh, he means nothing by it. Do not take offence.’ He steers him away from the generals. ‘You should congratulate him. He is to be married. I am giving him one of my harem, as thanks for his steadfast duty. A girl named Zahara.’
Gajendra feels the blood drain from his face.
‘Now have you heard? Antipater has bought off Athens and Corinth. He is gathering an army against me, he plans to go against me at Sicily. Did you know that?’
But he is not listening. Alexander is marrying Zahara to Nearchus?
‘Come, boy. I asked you a question. What do you think of Antipater’s plans?’
‘There has been talk about the camp.’
‘Some say it is all your fault.’
‘Mine?’
‘If you had not informed me of this plan to poison me, then I should not have crucified Iolaus and had Kassander put in a cage.’
‘But then you would have been dead.’
‘Is that all you can say in your defence?’ he says and starts to laugh. The corps laugh dutifully along also. ‘So then I suppose you wish me to reward you. Did you like the way they died?’
Zahara was meant for him! This was not how it was supposed to be. ‘Who, lord?’
‘Come on, elephant boy, keep up. Iolaus and the captain of the elephants! What was his name?’ He snaps his fingers for memory.
‘Oxathres,’ one of the generals says.
‘Yes. Oxathres. You never liked him, did you?’
‘I hated him.’
‘Well, there you are then. He took two days to die. A long time. He did not look as strong. I should have wagered three hours, the most. You?’
‘I thought he suffered overmuch.’
‘Overmuch? But he wanted to leave me to die by inches. He set the stakes, not I. How did you feel seeing your captain wriggling like that? Undignified. They die of suffocation, you know. The pain is secondary.’
‘It scared me.’
‘Scared you? Why?’
‘I should hate to die that way.’
‘A man should never be afraid of death. Look it in the eye, stare it down, invite it in for wine and welcome. Pain is nothing. Are you scared of pain?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then what is it? I wonder. I saw your face that day. What was it about it that troubled you so?’
Did Alexander really pick him out? His entire army was packed into the maidan. He surely could not make out one face among thousands, unless he registers every man instantly – like a god.
‘It seems you have many talents. I cannot turn my back on you for a moment. If you are not taming wild elephants, you are discovering plots against me. Now you are talking to elephants.’
‘Talking to elephants, my lord?’
‘That is what they say. That you whisper in an elephant’s ear and it will do anything you say, as if it were your own chamberlain. Is it true, elephant boy? Do you talk to elephants?’
‘Not in that way. I just do what every mahavat does.’
‘If you are like every mahavat, I would not have made you captain. A question. We leave for Sicily within the week to face Antipater and his Greeks. My generals say that we should leave the elephants behind, that they are too expensive to feed and too difficult to transport. What do you say to that?’
‘I say that if you have a weapon that is certain to confound and defeat your enemy, then you should use it.’
‘Ah, but they do not think so. They say we won here because the enemy had never faced elephants before. Next time they will be ready. Antipater is not stupid, he will have reports of my battles in India and at least the advice of those soldiers I sent home with Kraterus – some of the ingrates deserted, did you know that? The bastards fought against your Rajah at the Jhellum River, they know the tactics I devised for fighting them. You know what they were?’
Of course he knew. Colossus still had scars on his legs and flank from wounds he had taken there. His mahavat had died there. It was the Jhellum that forced the Rajah to make peace with Alexander and give him two hundred elephants as part of the treaty. It was how he and Ravi and the others came to be in Alexander’s employ.
Of course he knew.
The Macedonians encircled them first, using archers to pick off their mahavats, and then his slingers attacked the elephants’ eyes with a volley of darts. When the tuskers were half blinded and had no mahavat to help them, the infantry worked as a team, the bravest distracting the elephants by chopping at their trunks with a scimitar while their comrades chopped out the hams at the backs of their legs with axes.
It was brutal but effective. Gajendra doubted that any other army but Alexander’s might be quite as successful. It took iron discipline to do what they did. As it was, the Silver Shields had taken frightening losses.
‘Do you have a remedy to this?’
Gajendra looks him in the eye. ‘I do.’
‘Go ahead then. We are eager to hear it.’
The generals stand there with their arms folded. Th is Indian is going to tell them how to make war? Th is should be good.
‘First I would not use elephants against infantry. As you say, a well-trained phalanx will not be as easy as the Celts and Gauls we fought outside Carthage.’
‘What then?’
‘I would put them on the flanks and pit them against cavalry. Horses are terrified of elephants. They cannot make a successful charge against them. But I would disguise the move. I would make an oblique attack from the centre across the enemy’s front.’
Alexander stares at him for a long moment, then laughs and punches his shoulder. ‘My little elephant boy is a student of war!’ He turns to his commanders. ‘Who would have thought?’ He laughs again. ‘What else would you do, my little general? Show me.’
He grabs Ptolemy and Perdiccas and his other generals, pushes them around like counters on a money changer’s table. They flush, appalled, but they can hardly protest.
‘Here, you are my new Elephantarch for the day,’ Alexander says. ‘Tell me who should go where.’
‘What are the forces ranged against me?’
‘There have been many defectors among his Macedonians, gone over to Kraterus, and he is forced to fight on two fronts. So his army is mainly Greeks and mercenaries. My spies tell me he will have these as well as half of Leosthenes’s men as well.’
‘Leosthenes?’
‘He commands the largest army of mercenaries in the world. He put himself out for bids. I should not stoop so I left the auction to Antipater.’
‘So how many?’
‘Forty thousand. Perhaps fifty.’
‘Cavalry?’
A casual shrug. ‘Five thousand. But Greek cavalry. We shall have four thousand, my new phalanx and my Silver Shields. Twenty-five thousand, plus our irregulars.’
Alexander pushes Ptolemy to the centre, as the phalanx. ‘Here is Antipater’s phalanx.’ He grabs Perdiccas, and pushes him in front of Ptolemy. ‘There! And here, Perdiccas, be the archers. Where shall Antipater place him?’
‘They will be with the infantry. Archers are worthless against heavy cavalry; no bow is effective beyond a hundred paces, twenty-five if the wind is off the sea. I should use my own archers on the backs of the elephants where they are not nullified by speed.’
‘An elephant can only carry one archer, perhaps two.’
‘An elephant should carry at least four or five.’
The generals shake their heads and mutter. They don’t like it; they like the old ways.
Finally Perdiccas says, ‘It will slow the elephants down.’
‘How?’
‘The extra weight.’
‘Do you know how many men an elephant can carry on its back?’
Perdiccas doesn’t. He would like to thrash him. A gyppo talking back! Alexander beams.
‘If you don’t know how many, then how do you know it will slow him down?’ He turns to Alexander. ‘The howdahs need to be bigger, so you can have four archers or slingers in there. Instead of wood, you use hardened leather, to make it lighter and you give the archers lighter armour too. Then you have something no other army has – a mobile artillery.’
Alexander turns to Nearchus. ‘You hear that, my friend? What a lieutenant you have here!’ He shoves Lysimachus out next to Perdiccas, as Antipater’s cavalry.
‘Seleucus, you shall be the right wing. And Nearchus is Antipater. There, you have your enemy. You are outnumbered two to one. What shall you do?’
‘First I should better armour my elephants.’
‘Better armour them?’
‘To protect their legs against infantry. I can design the plates for you and your smithies can make them. It is not difficult. It’s just hooped iron tied together with leather thongs. You need heavier trunk and face armour, also.’
‘Why are we talking so much about elephants?’ Lysimachus grumbles. ‘We know what they can do.’
‘But they can do much more,’ Gajendra says. ‘If I were Alexander, I should use my elephants as a shield.’ He walks up to Ptolemy but then turns towards Lysimachus. ‘If your enemy sees the elephants, he is focused on the elephants. He may not think there are also several squadrons of cavalry behind them. He will not think you will go against cavalry because they are too quick. But the horses don’t know that. They will turn.’
‘Stand back, Lysimachus,’ Alexander says, and he does as he is commanded.
‘I should halt my elephants here, for the job is done. There is a break in the line. You are behind me with your Companion Cavalry. The mass of infantry are to our left. But if I am Alexander I should ignore them.’ He steps past Perdiccas and Ptolemy, stands nose to nose with Nearchus. ‘Here is Antipater at the rear. I should apply my violence here.’
Nearchus and Gajendra stare at each other.
Alexander claps his hands and stands between them. ‘An excellent discourse. My elephant boy may make a fine general one day. It is decided, then, the elephants come with us. Can your beasts travel by ship?’
‘It is difficult.’
‘How difficult?’
‘They must be manoeuvred up a plank to the ship. They are unhappy about it.’
‘But you can do it?’
‘I can do it.’
‘You have managed elephants on a ship before?’
‘Of course.’ A lie.
‘Good. Give me the details of what you need for the new armour and we shall set to work on it, as well as new howdahs. We shall have more archers on each beast. Gentlemen, we are going to Sicily!’
They are not all as enthusiastic as Alexander. As Gajendra leaves, the other generals position themselves so that he must squeeze through or else shove them aside. They look like lions hungry for supper.
‘Jumbo fucker,’ one of them murmurs as he passes.