When they were off Pylos he saw there, in that deserted region, a chance to strike a deadly blow at Sparta. He proposed to fortify Pylos, and establish there Messenians, who, knowing the land and loving it, would be a thorn in the side of Sparta. But the Admirals, Eurymedon and Sophokles, felt that the chief function of the fleet was to save Kerkyra, inasmuch as Athens had entered into the war depending upon the help that this great naval power could give. They refused to stop, telling Demosthenes that there were headlands enough on the shores of Peloponnesus as good as this, if he really wanted to throw away the money of Athens in fortifying them. He had no power of coercion; but he tried every form of persuasion. The men agreed with the Admirals; but he turned to the captains; and when they also refused to help him out he had to abandon his plan and move on with the rest. The relation of Demosthenes to the fleet seems droll. But by his strong personality, aided by luck, he accomplished all, and perhaps more than all, that he had hoped for. The fleet had hardly put out to sea when, luckily for him, a storm came on, and they were all driven back into the bay for shelter. The storm continued for several days, and after awhile the men by a common impulse began to fortify Pylos. It was a regular lark. They had brought along no tools to cut stones; so they took stones which lay ready at hand and piled them up just as they happened to fit. They used their backs as hods to carry mud, clasping their hands low down behind them and letting their companions load them up. Two short stretches of wall at the north and south ends made Pylos secure from attack on the land side. Another longer one, but not so high, on the sea front at the southwest angle was a sort of lure to invite attack by sea. In front of the wall was the only level space on Pylos; but before one could reach it by sea he must run his ship in close to a belt of jagged rocks, and get across them as best he could. Demosthenes, who was the director of all this jolly activity, frankly told his men that he never meant to fight behind this wall, but in front of it; never allowing a man of the enemy to reach the shore. In six days the work of fortification was completed; and the Admirals went on, leaving Demosthenes and five of their forty ships to carry out his plan. By good luck his men, who were marines and not very well equipped for land fighting, were immediately re-enforced by a Messenian pirate boat, with a lot of wicker shields on board, and, to crown all, forty heavy armed soldiers (hoplites).