“Aye, sir,” the man said, touching his forelock, quite automatically, and cheerfully shouting to his men kicked his mule, a placid beast, and moved along.
The handful of tents were struck and bundled up, stakes and all, into a crumpled heap upon one large cloth; cooking gear thrown in, too, and the great cauldrons all filled with round-shot. The middling dragons seized the guns, the militia and the remaining hands clambering up onto the smaller beasts with ropes to secure them—“It needs less rope, you see,” Temeraire explained, “for the little ones to carry, and the men say they like it better if only they can sit astride, instead of being cross-legged.”
He kept a stern headmaster’s eye on the operation, and from time to time darted an anxious glance at Laurence, as if to gauge his opinion; but there was nothing to complain of at all. As the dragons went aloft, they dipped down over the rear of the moving herd, and snatched themselves each some dinner, a cow or a fat pig, sluggish behind the rest, and flew away eating, with no evident difficulty in combining the activities, if they spattered themselves somewhat with blood.
“There, now we are ready also,” Temeraire said, and put out his hand for Laurence, to set him up aloft, and with a leap they were up: not an hour gone by, and beneath them nothing but the bare untidy field.
The flight was desperately quick from necessity, and the dragons flew in no particular order but one great disorganized mass, shifting continuously; or so it first seemed to Laurence, and then he discovered that the small dragons were dropping back, now and again, to rest upon the largest. The discovery was realized rather abruptly, when a small muddy-colored feral dropped down onto Temeraire’s back out of mid-air, and clutching on put her head out to peer at Laurence, with rather a critical expression, while she caught her breath with great gulps.
“Will Laurence, at your service,” Laurence said cautiously, after a few moments of silent staring.
“Oh, I am Minnow,” the dragon said. “Beg pardon, only I was a bit curious, because himself was so low, over losing you, I wondered if maybe you was different from other men.”
Her tone suggested she had found nothing out of the ordinary to admire. Temeraire put his head around indignantly. “Laurence is the very best captain there is. We have just been saving everyone, and fighting the admirals, so of course we do not have our nicest things with us presently.”
“Have you never wanted a companion?” Laurence asked the little dragon; little a relative term of course, as her head alone likely outweighed him entirely.
“I have chums enough,” she said, “and as for harness, and being told always where to go; no thanks very. I expect it is better for you big fellows,” she added to Temeraire, “in service, as no-one thinks they can bull you into anything you really do not like, but I hear enough from the old couriers to know it isn’t for me. Broke-down by the time their captains go, and nothing to show for it but harness-stripes. There, that has set me right, off I go,” she said, and jumped off again, with no more ceremony than she had arrived, and dashed off again out in front.
Laurence then saw the maneuver a common one, and responsible for the greater part of the confusion of shifting beasts. The heavy-weights indeed did not much change their positions, but made steady bulwarks in the force, timed to Requiescat’s pace, as he was the slowest of them all. The middle-weights, with more energy to spare, would occasionally break off and dive, low to the fields: returning, now and again, with cow or pig or sheep, which they either ate themselves or occasionally brought to the larger dragons.
“Yes, so we needn’t all stop,” Temeraire said, “and this way no-one is hungry when we arrive, not even Requiescat, even if he complains a little anyway just for show.”
“It ain’t for show,” Requiescat said, swinging his head around. “When I was in real fighting-trim I was twenty-six tons. I am not back up to snuff just yet, after that nasty cold,” a rather mild way of describing the effects of the virulent epidemic, which had struck the Regal Coppers particularly hard. All of them had lost a great deal of weight, which now was slow to return; although it was difficult to imagine Requiescat might be much larger than he was.
They met no opposition along the way, if a few French scouts: but these sighted them and turned and fled at once, bearing the news away. It was too much to hope for, that so large a force as they were, aloft, would go without notice; and if it made Napoleon delay his attack, indeed desirable he should have the news. Their flight bore them over Hammersmith and Kew, the snaking brown ribbon of the Thames with sparkling ice on its edges and a crust of snow, and then over the city itself.
Hollin took Elsie out ahead, quick, and threw out signal-flags; then the guns spoke from below, acknowledging, and below people came running into the streets to cheer them on, a heartening noise if made faint by distance. Temeraire called ahead, “Dirigion, Ventiosa, go ahead so they may see our flags,” and two Yellow Reapers darted out ahead, red velvet curtains streaming from their grasp.
Another twenty minutes’ flight brought the Army visible: a sea of redcoats in the churned mud and snow of camp. Temeraire took on height as they came in, so he had a clear lane before him, and then drawing breath roared. The air before them was cold and full of fragile wisps of white cloud, and these gave an ephemeral physical form to the terrible ringing force of the divine wind, breaking before its force into wide striated ripples, very much like the haze of heat which might appear over packed ground or sand in high summer. They melted away nearly at once again, but below, the dragons of the Corps were all putting their heads up from their clearings to watch them coming on, and roaring out in answer, glad greetings, and Temeraire banking took them down in a broad field, on the Army’s left flank near about Plumstead.
“Laurence,” Temeraire said, as they were settling, “pray will you tell the generals that I am very happy to come and speak to them, but they will need to clear some room at their tent, if it is that large one in the middle of camp, and also they had better do something about the horses.”
“I must prepare you, they will certainly not be in the least happy to have you come,” Laurence said, “nor take any act towards easing that end.”
“Then,” Temeraire said, “we will all go away again, and they may fight Napoleon without us. They have asked us to come, and they need our help; they may not treat us like slaves. And we will manage to feed ourselves, I dare say, somehow or other, even if they do not like to keep giving us cows.”
Laurence hesitated; he wished to voice some protest, and speak of duty, but justice silenced him. It was surely in no wise Temeraire’s duty, nor the duty of any of those dragons, who had never been asked for an oath, nor received any recompense for service. His own duty, he saw less clear. If he were ordered to remain, to serve whether in the field or a sentence of death, there could be no alternative. But he feared the duty demanded of him would be rather to persuade Temeraire to stay—against the dragon’s own interests, if necessary.
He was brought to the same tent again, now much altered: the map-tables occupied the lion’s share of the floor, unfolded wide, and littered with markers and figures. A steady low arguing was going on in a back chamber which had been added on, through a fresh-cut flap, querulous voices and frightened, and only a few with any note of decision; Laurence could hear Jane’s voice rising clear and ringing above them all. He was kept standing silently, trying not to overhear.
A group of young lean unsmiling officers were working over the tables; they looked at Laurence with cold disdain, and then paid him no attention. At length a colonel came out and said to Laurence, icily, “I am to tell you that you will be pardoned, if you can make the dragons fight.”