Empire of Ivory (49 page)

spend our time on the possibility, that a large company of

officers arranged to have themselves abducted, and a dozen

good men killed, so they could go and be offensive enough,

among a foreign nation where they did not speak a word, to

provoke them into assembling a dozen wings for immediate

assault? Which, I suppose, should have been accomplished

overnight, for Heaven knows there are no difficulties in

providing support, to a hundred dragons."

The questioning, with its grinding focus on minutiae, was

sullenly given up in another hour, when it had not provoked

confession. There were no official grounds for courtmartial, as no dragon had been lost, and if their Lordships

meant to seek a trial for the loss of the Cape, it would

have to be General Grey who faced it, and there was

certainly no public sympathy for such an inquest. There was

nothing left for them but to be deeply dissatisfied; and

nothing left for Laurence and his fellow-captains but to

sit and listen to their complaints.

Several measures of recapturing the ports were proposed

which had not the least chance of success, Jane forced to

recall to their Lordships, with poorly concealed

exasperation, the parade of failures which had been

occasioned by all the attempts to establish colonies in the

face of organized aerial hostilities: by Spain, in the New

World; the total destruction of Roanoke; the disasters in

Mysore. "You should need enough ships to throw twenty tons

of metal, and six formations, to take the Cape long enough

to secure the fort again, if they have not ripped it all

down," she said, "and when you were done, you should have

to leave two of those formations behind with a first-rate's

worth of guns, and I hardly like to think how many

soldiers; and somehow supply them monthly, if the enemy did

not have the bright notion of attacking the supply-ships

farther north."

The proposals subsided. "My Lords, you are already aware,

that I see no grounds to quarrel with Admiral Roland's

figures," Nelson said, "if I am perhaps, not so pessimistic

of our chances to succeed, where the attempts of a previous

century had failed. But even half such a force cannot be

easily mustered, and certainly not unobserved; nor could it

be transported from any civilized port, to any province of

Africa, without the knowledge of the Navy, and indeed

without its complaisance in the matter: I will stand surety

for it.

"If we cannot retake the Cape, therefore, or reestablish a

foothold upon the continent, we may nevertheless satisfy

ourselves that no other nation may do so. France,

certainly, cannot aspire to it. I will not say that

Napoleon may not conquer anyplace in the world from Calais

to Peking, so long as he can walk to it; but if he must put

to sea, he is at our mercy.

"Indeed," he added, "I will go further. Without in any way

ceasing to lament the dreadful loss we have suffered, in

property and lives, from the savagery of this unprovoked

assault, I will as a question of strategy declare myself

heartily content to exchange all the convenience of our

possession of the Cape, for the lack of any need to defend

that position, henceforth. We have spoken before,

gentlemen, in these halls, of all the expense and

difficulty of improving the fortifications and patrolling

the vast coastline against French incursion: an expense and

difficulty which will now be borne instead by our erstwhile

enemies."

Laurence was by no means disposed to argue with him, but he

could not comprehend at first, why the Admiralty should

have feared such an incursion at all. The French had never

shown the least ambition to seize the Cape, which if a

valuable port in general was unnecessary to them, holding

as they did the Île de France, off the eastern coast of

Africa, and certainly a difficult nut to crack; they had

enough to do to hold what maritime possessions they already

had.

Mulgrave pulled at his nose a little, without comment.

"Admiral Roland," he said at last reluctantly, as if he did

not like to pronounce her title, "what is our present

strength at the Channel, if you please?"

"From Falmouth to Middlesbrough, eighty-three I put at

fighting strength," she said, "and another twenty who could

rise to the occasion. Seventeen of those heavy-weight, and

three Longwings, besides the Kazilik and the Celestial. At

Loch Laggan we have another fourteen, hatchlings, in

training but old enough to bring up; and more, of course,

along the North Sea coast. We would be hard-put to feed

them, for an action of more than a day, but they would make

a good relief."

"What is your estimation of our chances, should he make

another attempt to invade by means of airships, such as he

used at the battle of Dover?" Nelson asked.

"If he don't mind leaving half of them on the ocean floor,

he might be able to land the rest, but I shouldn't

recommend it him," Jane said. "The militia will set them on

fire as quick as they can come in past us. No; I asked for

a year, and it has not been so long, but the cure makes up

for all that, and having back Lily and Temeraire in

fighting trim: the French cannot come by air."

"Yes, the cure," Nelson said. "It is I trust secured? There

is no chance it might be stolen? I believe I heard of an

incident-"

"Why, I beg you will not blame the poor fellow," Jane said.

"He is a lad of fourteen, and his Winchester was in a bad

way. There were some sorry rumors, I am afraid to say, that

there was not enough of the cure to go about, because we

began a little slowly, to see how small the dose might be

kept before we ran around pouring it down their gullets.

There was no harm done, and he confessed it all himself,

quite rightly, when I put it to all the captains. We put a

guard on the supply, afterwards, to keep anyone else from

temptation, and no one has gone poking about."

"But if another attempt should be made?" Nelson said.

"Might the guard be easily increased, and perhaps some

fortification arranged?"

"After feeding every blessed dragon in Britain and the

colonies on the stuff, there is precious little of it left

to steal, if anyone should want to," Jane said, "except

what the gentlemen of the Royal Society have managed to

persuade to take root up at Loch Laggan; and as for that,

if anyone likes to try and take it from the middle of a

covert, they are welcome."

"Very good; so, gentlemen," Nelson said, turning to the

other commissioners, "you see that as a result of these

events, deplorable as they may be in themselves, we may now

be quite certain in our control of the cure: at least as

certain as our own efforts could have made us."

"I beg your pardon," Laurence said, making sense at last he

thought of the preoccupation, and with dismay, "is there

reason to believe the disease has been communicated to the

Continent? Are the French dragons taken ill?"

"We hope so," Nelson said, "although we yet lack

confirmation upon the point; but the spy-courier, the

Plein-Vite whom we captured, was sent over to them two days

ago, and we hope any day to receive word that they have

been inoculated with the disease."

"The only damned silver lining to the bloody mess," Gambier

said, to a general murmur of agreement. "It will be some

reparation to see the Corsican's face, when his own beasts

are all coughing blood."

"Sir," Laurence managed; beside him Catherine was sicklywan with horror, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth.

"Sir, I must protest against-" He felt as though he were

choking. He remembered little Sauvignon, who had kept

Temeraire company that long dreadful week when they thought

all hope was lost; when Laurence had expected to see his

dragon coughing blood, at any moment.

"I should damned well hope so," Jane said, standing up.

"This is why you had her sent to Eastbourne, I suppose, and

none of closing the quarantine-grounds at all; a splendid

creeping business. Will we be driving a plague-ship into

their harbor, next, pray tell me, or poisoning their

convoys of grain? Like a parcel of damned scrubs-"

Musgrave, straightening outraged in his chair, snapped,

"Ma'am, you are out of order," and Admiral Gambier said,

"This is what comes of-"

"Why damn you, Gambier, come around here and say so," she

said, putting her hand to her sword, and the room devolved

very quickly to shouting and scorn, so even the Marines

outside the door put in their heads timidly.

"You cannot mean to do this," Laurence said. "Your Grace,

you have met Temeraire, spoken to him; you cannot imagine

they are not thinking creatures, beasts to be put to the

slaughter-"

Palmerston said, "Tenderhearted womanish folly-" seconded

by Gambier, and Ward; "-the enemy," Nelson said, over the

noise, trying to reply, "and we must seize the opportunity

which has been offered us, to level the distinction between

our aerial forces and theirs-"

The sly, underhanded way it had all been managed, proved

well enough that the commissioners had expected opposition,

and chosen to avoid it; they were not more ready to be

harangued after the fact, and when Jane had shortly grown a

little louder, they had reached the limits of their

tolerance. "-and this," Jane was shouting, "is how I am

told, days past the event; when the stupidest scuttling

crab might conceive that, as soon as Bonaparte knows what

has happened, as soon as he sees his beasts growing sick,

he will come across at once; at once, if he is not a

gawping fool-and you drag me here to Dover, with two

Longwings and our Celestial, and the damned Channel hanging

open like Rotten Row-" when Musgrave rising beckoned to the

guards, to stand open the door.

"Then we must not keep you," he said, rather icily, and

added, when Jane would have gone on, "You are dismissed,

madam," holding out the formal orders for the defense of

the Channel, the papers crumpling savagely in Jane's fist

as she stormed out from the room.

Catherine leaned heavily on Chenery's arm as they left,

pale with her lip bitten to dark red. Nelson, following,

stopped Laurence in the hall before he could go far after

them, with a hand to his arm; and spoke to him at length:

about what, Laurence did not entirely follow; a cutting-out

expedition which he proposed to make, to Copenhagen, the

Danish fleet to be seized there. "I would be glad to have

you, Captain," he finished, "and Temeraire, if you can be

spared from the defense of the Channel, at least for a

week's time."

Laurence stared at him, feeling heavy and stupid, baffled

at Nelson's easy manner: he had met Temeraire, had spoken

with him; he could not plead ignorance. He might not have

been the prime mover of this experiment; but he was no

opponent of it, whose opposition might have been

everything, would have been everything, surely.

The silence grew strained, then oppressive. Nelson paused,

said, with a little more hauteur, "You are fresh from a

long voyage, and I am sure tired from all this questioning;

I have considered it an unnecessary waste, from the first.

We will speak again tomorrow; I will come to the covert in

the morning, before you must return."

Laurence touched his hat; there was nothing he could say.

Out of the building and into the street, sick to his heart

and wretched, seeing nothing; the touch on his elbow made

him startle, and he stared at the small, shabby man

standing next to him. The expression Laurence wore must

have shown some sign of what he felt; the small man bared a

mouthful of wooden teeth in an attempt at a placating

smile, thrust into Laurence's hand a packet of papers, and

touching his own forelock dashed away, without a word

spoken.

Mechanically Laurence unfolded it: a suit for damages in

the amount of ten thousand three hundred pounds, two

hundred six slaves valued at fifty pounds a head.

Temeraire was asleep in the lingering, slanted light;

dappled. Laurence did not wake him, but sat down on the

rough-hewn log bench beneath the shelter of the pine-trees,

facing him, and silently bent his head: in his hands he

turned over the neat roll of crisp rice paper, the seal in

red ink already affixed, which Dyer had handed him. The

letter could not be allowed to go, he supposed; too much

chance of interception, or that the intelligence might find

its way back somehow to Lien, if she yet retained any

allies in the Chinese court.

The clearing was empty: the men still out on their leave.

From the small forge, past the trees, Blythe's hammer

steadily rang on the harness-buckles, a thin metallic sound

exactly like the odd voice of the African bird, calling

along the river, and Laurence found the dust of the