“Then at least they will have spent the time and effort to come for them, which they would otherwise have used to bring fresh troops over from France,” Laurence said. In any case, no-one objected; it shamed him again to see how greatly the other officers and dragons both were relieved by the alteration in their practice. He expected daily however an answer from Wellesley, relieving him of the command, and wondered what he should say to the other captains when it came; if Wellesley should have found some other officer to carry on the work.
But no letter came: three days later a great noise arose in the morning around their camp: many ferals bursting in upon them eagerly with news, and before their combined chatter could be worked out, the great dragons of the Corps were already landing everywhere, laden with men. One company after another were put off onto the ground, supplies, artillery, and the dragons leapt away again with scarcely more than a call of greeting. Above them more dragons were flying past, all the British Army on the move.
Wellesley arrived a little past noon, and commandeered the old half-derelict barn, where the crews had been sleeping, for his headquarters. “Out, the rest of you,” he said, jerking his head at the crew and even the aides sweeping out the floor, fixing Laurence in place with a cold look. “Cleverly done, Laurence,” Wellesley said, when they were alone. “Not so simple after all, are you?”
Laurence was silent, uncertain, until Wellesley added, “I will not waste my breath asking who on my staff passed you the news, but you will understand me: if you have the infernal gall to waste my time now, with some damned attempt at extortion, I will shoot you myself.”
And then Laurence understood: Wellesley thought his letter had been timed deliberately, on the very eve of his southward advance, to establish Wellesley’s own responsibility for the slaughter of the French irregulars.
“I will not hear a damned word about pardon from you,” Wellesley said, “not a one. In three days’ time we will meet Bonaparte, and if I win, no-one will give a damn whatever accusations you like to make. And of course,” he added, icily, “you will be well-looked-after in the event we lose. Rowley!” he bellowed. “Get my desk in here, and call in the general staff.”
Officers began to pour in, struggling under tables and maps and chairs. Laurence was almost at once pressed away from Wellesley as they thronged around him, and any reply Laurence might have made was lost in the crowd.
He felt the urgent wish to push through, to seize Wellesley and to argue; but he forced himself to be still. It did not matter. He could make no denial Wellesley would believe. In any case, that Wellesley thought him a blackguard for refusing to continue, rather than for having begun at all, made little difference; Laurence had earned the condemnation, and he might as well bear it for the wrong cause.
“Emily,” he said, turning instead, and beckoned her back into the building; she was peering in at the door cautiously, to one side of the stampede. “Take Demane and go up and get those hayloft doors open,” he told her, “so Temeraire and the other dragons can hear.”
He went outside himself: it was already becoming impossibly cramped upon the ground, though more trees had been uprooted, and a broad avenue opened up to the road: every dragon who had landed, dropping off men, was soon jostling for space at the hayloft.
“We shan’t manage like this,” Jane said, Excidium having landed after a warning hiss had cleared him a place. “Dragons over the rank of lieutenant only may stay: the rest of you must go on with the rest of the Army, and get the news from your officers or your captains. We have had to give them all ranks, thanks to your Temeraire’s splendid scheme,” she added dryly to Laurence. “The rest of them turned miserably sulky and wanted epaulettes of their own; frivolous creatures.” She patted Excidium, who looked rather smug with two epaulettes of deep fire orange, to match the edges of his massive wings.
They had scarcely made a little order, and themselves crammed back into the barn, before Wellesley began: his aides put up a map of Chatham roads, the mouth of the Thames where it spilled into the Channel, with all the small towns and villages thereabout. Their positions were marked, and a low murmur went about: their backs would be to the sea.
“Well, gentlemen, I see you like our position as well as I hope our friend Bonaparte will do,” Wellesley said. “The Navy and the Corps have all but cut off his connection to the Continent, and the countryside has risen. He loses now each day a hundred men, and each week two dragons, for lack of supply. He can ill afford to refuse us a pitched battle, if we offer it to him on what I trust he will think reasonable terms.”
The terms seemed indeed reasonable—from the French perspective. Laurence wondered if Wellesley meant by such an arrangement to stiffen the backs of the soldiers, by denying them any avenue of retreat save through the French troops before them.
“Colonels Featherstone and Bree, you will take the center. Your position is the most essentiaclass="underline" you must hold, until you are signaled,” Wellesley said. “Yield before the moment is ripe, and he will split our forces, and destroy us at his leisure. You are not to advance, under any circumstances: you are only to form square and hold. Colonel Rethlow, you will back them with the artillery.
“The cavalry will take position on either flank, with the rest of our infantry positioned here, and here,” he indicated, “and the Corps will hold off any French attempt to charge our center from aloft. All our design, gentlemen, as I hope you gather,” he went on, “is to hold fast, while they spend the best part of their strength, and divert their attacks from our center, until the signal is given.
“The order of march then being sounded, we will gradually withdraw along either flank—” Two of the aides heaved up a fresh map, with new positions marked, yielding to the French the very center position which had been so vigorously defended. “—and cut him off from his aerial support and whatever reserves he may have yet kept back, and launch our attack against his rear. General Paget, it will be your task to ensure that Bonaparte himself remains within our circle. General Ollen, your artillery will be directed towards Bonaparte’s reserves, rather than the main body of his force, to keep them from rejoining him.
“Our aim, gentlemen, is the capture of this tyrant, and an end to his perpetual war. I will be satisfied with nothing less, and I assure you their Lordships have agreed with my judgment.”
With only this brief and unsettling plan of battle, he concluded and dismissed them all, adding, “Colonel Featherstone, a word with you.” He drew that officer aside privately, thus preventing many other officers of the general staff, who themselves plainly wanted a word, and more than one.
Laurence went out to Temeraire, who was rather regretfully submitting to being rigged out in carrying-harness. “We are taking this company,” he said, as Laurence came, “or so he tells me—” The infantry officer nodded to Laurence, a little stiffly, and touched his hat.
“Very good,” Laurence answered, and stifled his doubts. To risk dividing their forces so, yielding the center to Napoleon and then directing all their force deliberately between him and his reserve, to be pounded upon from either side, seemed a terrible risk to run; if it made more likely Napoleon’s capture, it made also more likely that the French should simply overrun them. But Wellesley was not a fool, and if he meant to tolerate all the weaknesses and dangers of his planned course, he had some cause. He had certainly taken pains to evade any questions, and any protests which might have been made against him to the ministers, by delaying the conference until the deployment already had begun. There was nothing for it now, but to trust him.
THE DEGREE OF EXCITEMENT which Temeraire felt, expressed itself nearly as pain: his ruff expanded, whenever a few minutes passed where he did not make an effort to smooth it out, and drew a pounding tightness all along the line of his neck. He tried now and again to curl himself for a little rest, but it was impossible: no more of wretched raids, no more hiding, no more carrying anyone about; a real battle at last.