III

Chapter 11

PRINCE HOHENLOHE LISTENED to Laurence’s attempted explanations without very much expression: some sixty years of age, with a jovial face rendered dignified rather than unpleasantly formal by his white-powdered wig, he looked nonetheless determined. “Little enough did Britain offer, to the defeat of the tyrant you so profess to hate,” he said finally, when Laurence had done. “No army has come across from your shores to join the battle. Others, Captain, might have complained that the British prefer to spend gold than blood; but Prussia is not unwilling to bear the brunt of war. Yet twenty dragons we were assured, and promised, and guaranteed; and now we stand on the eve of war, and none are here. Does Britain mean to dishonor her agreement?”

“Sir, not a thought of it, I swear to you,” Thorndyke said, glaring daggers at Laurence.

“There can be no such intention,” Laurence said. “What has delayed them, sir, I cannot guess; but that can only increase my anxiety to be home. We are a little more than a week’s flying away; if you will give me safe-passage I can be gone and back before the end of the month, and I trust with the full company which you have been promised.”

“We may not have so long, and I am not inclined to accept more hollow assurances,” Hohenlohe said. “If the promised company appears, you may have your safe-passage. Until then, you will be our guest; or if you like, you may do what you can to fulfill the promises which were made: that I leave to your conscience.”

He nodded to his guard, who opened the tent-door, signifying plainly the interview was at an end; and despite the courtliness of his manners, there was iron underlying his words.

“I hope you are not so damned foolish you will sit about watching and give them still more disgust of us,” Thorndyke said, when they had left the tent.

Laurence wheeled on him, very angry. “As I might have hoped that you would have taken our part, rather than encourage the Prussians in treating us more as prisoners than allies, and insulting the Corps; a pretty performance from a British officer, when you know damned well our circumstances.”

“What a couple of eggs can matter next to this campaign, you have leave to try and convince me,” Thorndyke said. “For God’s sake, do you not understand what this could mean? If Bonaparte rolls them up, where the devil do you suppose he will look next but across the Channel? If we do not stop him here, we will be stopping him in London this time next year; or trying to, and half the country in flames. You aviators would rather do anything than risk these beasts you are hooked to, I know that well enough, but surely you can see—”

“That is enough; that is damned well enough,” Laurence said. “By God, you go too far.” He gave the man his back and stalked away in a simmering rage; he was not by nature a quarrelsome man, and he had rarely so wanted satisfaction; to have his courage questioned, and his commitment to duty, and withal an insult to his service, was very hard to bear, and he thought if their circumstances had been anything other than desperate, he could not have restrained himself.

But the prohibition forbidding Corps officers to duel was not an ordinary regulation, to be circumvented; here of all places, in the middle of a war, he could not risk some injury, even short of death, that might not only leave him out of the battle but would cast Temeraire wholly down. But he felt the stain to his honor, deeply, “and I suppose that damned hussar is off thinking to himself I have not the courage of a dog,” he said, bitterly.

“You did just as you ought, thank Heaven,” Granby said, pale with relief. “There’s no denying it’s a wrench, but the risk isn’t to be borne. You needn’t see the fellow again; Ferris and I can go-between with him, if there’s anything we must deal with him for.”

“I thank you; but I should sooner let him shoot me than let him think I have the least reluctance to face him,” Laurence said.

Granby had met him at the entrance to the covert; now together they reached the small, bare clearing which had been assigned them; Temeraire was curled up in what comfort he could find and listening intently to the conversation of the Prussian dragons near him, ears and ruff pricked up with attention, while the men busied themselves at cooking-fires, snatching a hasty meal.

“Are we leaving now?” he asked, when Laurence arrived.

“No, I am afraid not,” Laurence said, calling over his other senior officers, Ferris and Riggs, to join them. “Well, gentlemen, we are in the thick of it,” he told them grimly. “They have refused us the safe-conduct.”

When Laurence had finished giving them the whole of the situation, Ferris burst out, “But sir, we will fight, won’t—I mean, will we fight with them?” hastily correcting himself.

“We are not children or cowards, to sulk in a corner when there is a battle to hand, and of such vital importance,” Laurence said. “Offensive they have been, but I will grant they have been sorely tried, and they might be as outrageous as they liked before I would let pride keep us from doing our duty, and there can scarcely be any question of that; only I wish to God I knew why the Corps has not sent the promised aid.”

“There’s only one thing it can be; they must be needed more somewhere else,” Granby said, “and likely enough it’s the same reason they sent us for the eggs in the first place; only if the Channel is not under bombardment, the trouble must be somewhere overseas—some great upset in India, or trouble in Halifax—”

“Oh! Maybe we are taking back the American colonies?” Ferris offered; Riggs opined that it was more likely the colonials had invaded Nova Scotia, ungrateful rebellious sods; and they wrangled it back and forth a moment before Granby interrupted their fruitless speculation.

“Well, it don’t matter where, exactly; the Admiralty will never strip the Channel bare no matter how busy Bonaparte is elsewhere, and if all the spare dragons are coming home by transport, any sort of mess at sea could have held them up. But if they are already two months overdue, surely they must arrive any moment.”

“For my part, Captain, I hope you’ll forgive my saying, I’d as soon stay and fight if they get here tomorrow,” Riggs said, in his bluff forthright way. “We could always pass the eggs to some middle-weight to take home; it would be a damned shame to miss a chance to help give Boney a drubbing.”

“Of course we must stay and fight,” Temeraire put in, dismissing the entire question with a flick of his tail; and indeed there would have been no restraining him, if the battle were anywhere in his vicinity: young male dragons were not notably reluctant to jump into an affray. “It is a great pity that Maximus and Lily are not here, and the rest of our friends; but I am very glad at last we will get to fight the French again. I am sure we can beat them this time, too, and then maybe,” he added suddenly, sitting up; his eyes widened and his ruff mounted up with a visible rush of enthusiasm, “the war will be over, and we can go home and see to the liberty of dragons, after all.”

Laurence was startled by the intensity of his own sensation of relief; though uneasy, he had not properly realized how very low Temeraire had sunk, that this burst of excitement should provide so sharply defined a contrast. It wholly overcame any inclination he might have had to voice discouraging cautions; though a victory here, he was well aware, was necessary but not sufficient to Bonaparte’s final defeat. It was entirely possible, he privately argued with his conscience, that Bonaparte might be forced to make terms, if thoroughly checked in this campaign; and thus give Britain real peace for at least a little while.