Victory of Eagles (43 page)

apologies, more than this, and must make them; and then I must write to Wellesley—I know not how,

but I must tell him we will not continue in this manner. There will be no more of this slaughter without

quarter. We will manage our prisoners somehow; and we will rather seek out than flee any force which

has a gun, or a few dragons.”

Temeraire had not known how worried he had been, until the source of the distress had lifted; but his

spirits rose almost effervescently at Laurence’s words. “How happy I am to hear it,” he said, adding,

“and I am sure we will take a great many prizes.” However brave a face Laurence wished to put on it,

Temeraire felt this could not but be reassuring.

“More likely,” Laurence said, “Wellesley will order me to come back and be hanged at once.”

“If he does, you shall not go,” Temeraire said indignantly, flaring his ruff.

“No,” Laurence said, after a moment. “I shall not.”

Sir,

I must beg your leave to acquaint you with an Alteration in the methods of our company, to

which I hope you will not object, for humanity’s sake, despite some increase in Inconvenience and

in Danger, which all those officers in His Majesty’s service presently reporting to me, and those

dragons likewise, have gladly agreed to support, venturing rather their persons than their

conscience…

Along these lines the letter was written, with difficulty, and by Gherni it was sent. They established their

new camp between North Seaton and Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, and began to put up a stockade manned

with volunteers from the countryside. “We are making a nice honey-pot for them to rescue,” Sutton

commented, as the dragons cheerfully tore up trees: they had no guns to defend the walls.

“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

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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

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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 essential: 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 EXCITEMENTwhich 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

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it was impossible: no more of wretched raids, no more hiding, no more carrying anyone about; a real

battle at last.

Their coverts were established also on the coast, but well to the flanks of the battle, to north and south.

Temeraire could see the dotted lines of fishing huts scattered away around them, a few distant yellow

candle-gleams, and the rocky coastline a dark mass against the faintly lighter sky, the steady ongoing roar

of the surf behind them. It was yet dark; the voices of the Fleur-de-Nuits, scouting their positions,

echoed overhead. Occasionally a flare was shot off to blind them, or a few dragons chosen by lot went

up to chase a few of them away.

Laurence rose a little before dawn, and climbed down from Temeraire’s back, to look out towards the

battlefield.

“Is Napoleon there?” Temeraire asked Laurence, eagerly. “Have they come?”

“Yes,” Laurence said. “They are in pickets; put your head down and you will see them.”

Temeraire lowered his head and tipped it so he had one eye aimed along the ground: against the deep

grey of the sky as it lightened, he could see atop a hill the tiny narrow lines of the pickets: narrow posts,

little more than sticks, each leaning a little in one direction or another, and the lumpy dark shapes at their

base: the sleeping soldiers, thus kept in their columns. Overhead, the stars were dimming and going out: a

thick grey fog rolling in from the water, as the sky grew paler.

“It is time,” Laurence said. Fellowes stirred, behind Temeraire’s leg, and yawning rose to see to the

harness.

Temeraire rumbled softly, deep in his throat, and called, “Majestatis, Ballista—it is time to get everyone

up.”

“I still do not like this plan at all,” Perscitia said, fretfully, as they all ate: fresh cattle, saved for this

morning, and nearly everyone had all they wanted. “I do not see what the use is, in fighting so hard to

keep them from the center, and then letting them have it after all; why not give it to them at once, to

begin? And are you quite sure they are there?”

The question was not as odd as it seemed; the fog had grown so thick they could see nothing from the

ground but the trees just about the clearing: the presence of their own army had to be taken on faith,

much less the enemy.

“Yes, I am quite sure,” Temeraire said. “Laurence pointed them out to me, just before morning. We will

see them better once we are aloft, I am sure.”

Rain fell in a thin icy drizzle as they went up: they had all drawn lots to see who should have which shift,

as Admiral Roland had insisted they might not all fight at once, and Temeraire did see the sense in

keeping some back, when the battle should be very long. He was very relieved to be leading up the first

rank, however, and hoped privately that the fog might last; and perhaps Laurence would not notice when

it was mid-day and time for their own rest.

He could not, after all, see much better from above. Pockets of mist like seething cauldrons stood in

every low valley, and still more great towering clouds were rolling majestically in from the sea, so high

they stretched up to engulf him as much as the ground below, with gusts of sharp rain that pattered noisily

on his wings. As they flew on towards the battlefield, he began to catch glimpses of the soldiers in their