On hearing the account that evening, Granby said, “I say we heave Hammond and Yongxing over the side together some dark night, and good riddance,” expressing Laurence’s private sentiments more frankly than Laurence himself felt he could. Granby was speaking, with no regard for manners, between bites of a light meal of soup, toasted cheese, potatoes fried in pork fat with onions, an entire roast chicken, and a mince pie: he had finally been released from his sickbed, pallid and much reduced in weight, and Laurence had invited him to supper. “What else was that prince saying to him?”
“I have not the least idea; he has not said three words together in English the last week,” Laurence said. “And I do not mean to press Temeraire to tell me; it would be the most officious, prying sort of behavior.”
“That none of his friends should ever be flogged there, I expect,” Granby said, darkly. “And that he should have a dozen books to read every day, and heaps of jewels. I have heard stories about this sort of thing, but if a fellow ever really tried it, they would drum him out of the Corps quick as lightning; if the dragon did not carve him into joints, first.”
Laurence was silent a moment, twisting his wineglass in his fingers. “Temeraire is only listening to it at all because he is unhappy.”
“Oh, Hell.” Granby sat back heavily. “I am damned sorry I have been sick so long; Ferris is a right’un, but he hasn’t been on a transport before, he couldn’t know how the sailors get, and how to properly teach the fellows to take no notice,” he said glumly. “And I can’t give you any advice for cheering him up; I served with Laetificat longest, and she is easy-going even for a Regal Copper: no temper to speak of, and no mood I ever saw could dampen her appetite. Maybe it is not being allowed to fly.”
They came into the harbor the next morning: a broad semicircle with a golden beach, dotted with attractive palms under the squat white walls of the overlooking castle. A multitude of rough canoes, many with branches still attached to the trunks from which they had been hollowed, were plying the waters of the harbor, and besides these there could be seen an assortment of brigs and schooners, and at the western end a snow of middling size, with her boats swarming back and forth, crowded with blacks who were being herded along from a tunnel mouth that came out onto the beach itself.
The Allegiance was too large to come into the harbor proper, but she had anchored close enough; the day was calm, and the cracking of the whips perfectly audible over the water, mingled with cries and the steady sound of weeping. Laurence came frowning onto the deck and ordered Roland and Dyer away from their wide-eyed staring, sending them below to tidy his cabin. Temeraire could not be protected in the same manner, and was observing the proceedings with some confusion, the slitted pupils of his eyes widening and narrowing as he stared.
“Laurence, those men are all in chains; what can so many of them have done?” he demanded, roused from his apathy. “They cannot all have committed crimes; look, that one over there is a small child, and there is another.”
“No,” Laurence said. “That is a slaver; pray do not watch.” Fearing this moment, he had made a vague attempt at explaining the idea of slavery to Temeraire, with his lack of success due as much to his own distaste as to Temeraire’s difficulty with the notion of property. Temeraire did not listen now, but kept watching, his tail switching rapidly in anxiety. The loading of the vessel continued throughout the morning, and the hot wind blowing from the shore carried the sour smell of unwashed bodies, sweating and ill with misery.
At length the boarding was finished, and the snow with her unhappy cargo came out of the harbor and spread her sails to the wind, throwing up a fine furrow as she went past them, already moving at a steady pace, sailors scrambling in the rigging; but full half her crew were only armed landsmen, sitting idly about on deck with their muskets and pistols and mugs of grog. They stared openly at Temeraire, curious, their faces unsmiling, sweating and grimy from the work; one of them even picked up his gun and sighted along it at Temeraire, as if for sport. “Present arms!” Lieutenant Riggs snapped, before Laurence could even react, and the three riflemen on deck had their guns ready in an instant; across the water, the fellow lowered his musket and grinned, showing strong yellowed teeth, and turned back to his shipmates laughing.
Temeraire’s ruff was flattened, not out of any fear, as a musket-ball fired at such a range would have done him less injury than a mosquito to a man, but with great distaste. He gave a low rumbling growl and almost drew a deep preparatory breath; Laurence laid a hand on his side, quietly said, “No; it can do no good,” and stayed with him until at last the snow shrank away over the horizon, and passed out of their sight.
Even after she had gone, Temeraire’s tail continued to flick unhappily back and forth. “No, I am not hungry,” he said, when Laurence suggested some food, and stayed very quiet again, occasionally scraping at the deck with his claws, unconsciously, making a dreadful grating noise.
Riley was at the far end of the ship, walking the poop deck, but there were many sailors in earshot, getting the launch and the officers’ barge over the side, preparing to begin the process of supply, and Lord Purbeck was overseeing; in any case one could not say anything on deck in full voice and not expect it to have traveled to the other end and back in less time than it would take to walk the distance. Laurence was conscious of the plain rudeness of seeming to criticize Riley on the deck of his own ship, even without the quarrel already lingering between them, but at last he could not forbear.
“Pray do not be so distressed,” he said, trying to console Temeraire, without going so far as to speak too bluntly against the practice. “There is reason to hope that the trade will soon be stopped; the question will come before Parliament again this very session.”
Temeraire brightened perceptibly at the news, but he was unsatisfied with so bare an explanation and proceeded to inquire with great energy into the prospects of abolition; Laurence perforce had to explain Parliament and the distinction between the Commons and the Lords and the various factions engaged in the debate, relying for his particulars on his father’s activities, but aware all the while that he was overheard and trying as best he could to be politic.
Even Sun Kai, who had been on deck the whole morning, and seen the progress of the snow and its effects on Temeraire’s mood, gazed upon him thoughtfully, evidently guessing at some of the conversation; he had come as near as he could without crossing the painted border, and during a break, he asked Temeraire to translate for him. Temeraire explained a little; Sun Kai nodded, and then inquired of Laurence, “Your father is an official then, and feels this practice dishonorable?”
Such a question, put baldly, could not be evaded however much it might offend; silence would be very nearly dishonest. “Yes, sir, he does,” Laurence said, and before Sun Kai could prolong the conversation with further inquiries, Keynes came up to the deck; Laurence hailed him to ask him for permission to take Temeraire on a short flight to shore, and so was able to cut short the discussion. Even so abbreviated, however, it did no good for relations aboard ship; the sailors, mostly without strong opinions on the subject, naturally took their own captain’s part, and felt Riley ill-used by the open expression of such sentiments on his ship when his own family connections to the trade were known.
The post was rowed back shortly before the hands’ dinner-time, and Lord Purbeck chose to send the young midshipman Reynolds, who had set off the recent quarrel, to bring over the letters for the aviators: nearly a piece of deliberate provocation. The boy himself, his eye still blacked from Blythe’s powerful blow, smirked so insolently that Laurence instantly resolved on ending Martin’s punishment duty, nearly a week before he had otherwise intended, and said quite deliberately, “Temeraire, look; we have a letter from Captain Roland; it will have news of Dover, I am sure.” Temeraire obligingly put his head down to inspect the letter; the ominous shadow of the ruff and the serrated teeth gleaming so nearby made a profound impression on Reynolds: the smirk vanished, and almost as quickly so did he himself, hastily retreating from the dragondeck.