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.
"Well," Temeraire said, when he had listened to Laurence's awkward attempt to explain the orders which had brought them here, and the misunderstanding, "it does not seem at all complicated to me; they did not say you were only to give the commission, if the commander were a man?" he asked, lowering his head towards Miller.
"Why, not - no - " Miller said, staring, "but - "
"Then it is perfectly plain," Temeraire said, riding over him. "I shall write and say I am happy to accept my commission, and apologize that my duty to the regiment prevents my returning with Laurence at present; they cannot complain of that. Anyway, we must send at once to warn them: Napoleon will be attacking London in two days."
A more sensational means of diverting their attention he could hardly have conjured. Laurence did not know what to think, at first: Temeraire had perhaps a dragon's idea of distances, and did not appreciate the difficulties inherent in moving so many men and horses and their supply, from a landing on a hostile shore, to assault. It had not yet been a week since the landings on the Channel coast. Without opposition, in that time Bonaparte might have marched his men in a long string to the city, but as an army, ready to fight, no: Laurence relied on it. Or, he wished to rely on it, but he recalled too vividly the thunder of the guns at Warsaw, a month and more before the French ought to have been there, either, and doubted uneasily. "Can you be certain?"
"We have been watching Marshal Lef
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