“We were told nothing of the sort!” Miller said, having to lean rather frantically away to keep from being squashed by the prodding.
The Regal jerked his head back in surprise, and then put it farther back, squinting at them rather uselessly. “Is that a man? Why, you are under harness,” he said, exclaiming, and turned to squint at Elsie, too. “Both of you.”
“Of course they are,” Miller said, and added, with what Laurence had to admit was marked courage, if not much sense of gratitude, “Why are you flying about wild like this? Why have you gone out of the breeding grounds?”
“Hum,” the Regal Copper said. “I am no hand at explaining things, so I suppose you had better come along with me and talk to the commander.”
“What do you mean, commander,” Miller said, bewildered. “Are you fighting with the militia?”
“Yes, all those fellows are with us,” the Regal Copper said. “Come on then, up you get,” he added, to Devastatio. The Winchester sniffed a little, still licking at his wounds a bit more, but obeyed, climbing awkwardly onto the enormous dragon’s back. The Regal Copper went up with a tremendous propelling leap, took on a little height, and ponderously began to flap away, Elsie darting after him anxiously.
The flight was short, despite his slow pace, and he astonishingly landed them just outside the edges of a vast and neatly organized camp. Laurence had a glimpse of many dragons lying about in the clearing as they landed, and a large pen full of enormous black pigs.
The Regal padded along a broad cleared lane through the trees towards the heart of the camp, only to pull up short when a little Winchester, also without any harness, popped up on the border and said loudly, “Stop and give the watch-word!”
“It’s me, isn’t it?” the Regal Copper said. “And these two are with me, so they are all right, too.”
“That don’t matter,” the Winchester said, stubbornly. “Everyone must give the watch-word, or else I am to yell, but,” he said hastily, as the Regal Copper lowered his head, snorting, “I suppose that don’t mean you,” and hopped aside.
Laurence was startled to find a commander who had so little prejudice against unharnessed dragons that he had somehow conceived both to recruit them and make use of them in such a fashion. He wondered if the man could have some experience of the Corps—if he had a relation, or perhaps had lived near a covert. It made a solution twice over: both to keep the dragons from roving wild across the countryside, pillaging, and to strengthen his own militia force greatly. It did puzzle Laurence to see a dragon put on watch duty; but perhaps it would serve all the better to put off any spies.
Miller’s expression, where he sat perched up on the Regal beside Devastatio, stroking the injured dragon, suggested he was less impressed than scandalized to see beasts without harness, and serving in such a rôle.
For his part, the Regal did not seem to think much of it, either. “What things are coming to, I am sure I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head as he padded along. “It is all well and good to be talking on about pavilions and such,” and Laurence felt a great leap of hope, even before the Regal brought them out into the clearing at the center of the camp and said, “Temeraire, there are some fellows here to see you,” and Laurence flung loose his carabiner straps and leapt down from Elsie’s back, to see the great black head swinging around towards him.
“IT IS VERY WELL to have an eagle,” Temeraire said; it was a particularly bright gold now they had washed all the dirt from it—everyone had been ready to help—and the standard with it was very handsome, too, now the men had brushed it clean. It would be quite a wrench to sell it, he felt, and the way everyone else looked at it he expected they felt the same. “But we must not begin to think we will have things all our own way. There have not been very many French dragons to fight yet, because they are all busy carrying about the men, but sooner or later we will have to manage them.”
“I have some notions,” Perscitia said, “which we might like to try, when we have more to fight—”
“Temeraire,” Requiescat said, coming into the clearing behind him; Temeraire looked around and saw there was an injured Winchester on his back, and another trotting along behind him, with his old ground-crew master Hollin on her back.
Requiescat was still talking, and Perscitia going on about pepper, but Temeraire did not perfectly understand either of them; the words did not seem to want to make sense. That was Laurence, coming towards him; but Laurence was dead, and he was saying, “Temeraire, thank Heavens; I have been trying to find you these last five days.”
“But you are dead?” Temeraire said, uneasily. He had never seen a ghost, and had often thought it would be very interesting, but this was not, at all; it was dreadful, to see Laurence just as in life, to wish that he might reach out and gather him in, and keep him safe.
But Laurence said, “Of course I am not dead, my dear; I am here,” and Temeraire bent down his head and peered at Laurence very closely, and put out his tongue experimentally to sniff at him, and then at last he cautiously, so cautiously, put out his forehand to curl about Laurence and lift him up, and oh, he was quite solid: he was there, and he was not dead at all, and Temeraire gave a low joyful cry and curled around him tightly and said, “Oh, Laurence; I shall never let anyone take you from me again.”
II
Chapter 7
NO; THEY NEARLY drowned you, and not even on purpose but only through carelessness. I am not letting them have you back,” Temeraire said. “Besides, I cannot go; I cannot just leave everyone here.”
“You are more desperately needed with the main force,” Laurence said, trying to explain, the obstinate gleam in Temeraire’s eye discouraging. “We must speak to the commander.”
“I am the commander,” Temeraire said.
Laurence stared up at his earnest expression from within the protective wall of dragon encircling him, and then pulling himself up onto the ridge of Temeraire’s forearm looked more closely around the clearing. There was not a senior officer to be seen, anywhere, and none of the dragons, many of them regarding him with equal curiosity, were harnessed—besides the enormous Regal, an old Longwing lay with milky orange eyes half-lidded sleepily, and a big Chequered Nettle, a Parnassian, and scattered smaller dragons all around.
Beyond them Laurence could see the camp all full of dragons: Yellow Reapers by the dozens, sleeping nearly in a single heap, and smaller courier-beasts and light-weights sprawled upon them everywhere. There were a handful of men dealing with the pigs and a few cattle, penned up to one side, but they were in rough clothing, not officers of the Corps. Some few hundred in red coats mostly faded to russet, standing by the guns, and some volunteers in private coats: that was all. “The militia,” Laurence said, slowly.
“Yes, Lloyd and some of our herdsmen told us where to fetch them,” Temeraire said. “They are very good fellows: once they settled down, at least, and began to believe we were not going to eat them. We needed them to fire our guns.”
“Good God,” Laurence said, comprehensively; he could well and vividly imagine the reaction which the Lords of the Admiralty should have, to the intelligence that the well-formed orderly militia which they confidently expected, with a clever young officer at its head, was rather an experimental and wholly independent legion of unharnessed dragons, without great sympathy for their Lordships, and under the particular command of the most recalcitrant dragon in all Britain.