LITMIR.BIZ

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suppose it is hardly news to you how badly we need him, given how our affairs stand,’ Portland said, turning to Laurence; the two of them were standing by the side of the field, out of range of the mess the dragons were about to make. ‘Most of Bonaparte’s dragons are stationed along the Rhine, and of course he has been busy in Italy; that and our naval blockades are all that is keeping him from invasion. But if he gets matters arranged to his satisfaction on the Continent and frees up a few aerial divisions, we can say hail and farewell to the blockade at Toulon; we simply do not have enough dragons of our own here in the Med to protect Nelson’s fleet. He will have to withdraw, and then Villeneuve will go straight for the Channel.’

      Laurence nodded grimly; he had been reading the news of Bonaparte’s movements with great alarm since the Reliant had put into port. ‘I know Nelson has been trying to lure the French fleet out to battle, but Villeneuve is not a fool, even if he is no seaman. An aerial bombardment is the only hope of getting him out of his safe harbour.’

      ‘Which means there is no hope, not with the forces we can bring to it at present,’ Portland said. ‘The Home Division has a couple of Longwings, and they might be able to do it; but they cannot be spared. Bonaparte would jump on the Channel fleet at once.’

      ‘Ordinary bombing would not do?’

      ‘Not precise enough at long range, and they have poisoned shrapnel guns at Toulon. No aviator worth a shilling would take his beast close to the fortifications.’ Portland shook his head. ‘No, but there is a young Longwing in training, and if Temeraire will be kind enough to hurry up and grow, then perhaps together they might shortly be able to take the place of Excidium or Mortiferus at the Channel, and even one of those two might be sufficient at Toulon.’

      ‘I am sure he will do everything in his power to oblige you,’ Laurence said, glancing over; the dragon in question was on his second cow. ‘And I may say that I will do the same. I know I am not the man you wished in this place, nor can I argue with the reasoning that would prefer an experienced aviator in so critical a role. But I hope that naval experience will not prove wholly useless in this arena.’

      Portland sighed and looked down at the ground. ‘Oh, hell,’ he said. It was an odd response to make, but Portland looked anxious, not angry, and after a moment he added, ‘There is just no getting around it; you are not an aviator. If it were simply a question of skill or knowledge, that would mean difficulties enough, but—’ He stopped.

      Laurence did not think, from the tone, that Portland meant to question his courage. The man had been more amiable this morning; so far, it seemed to Laurence that aviators simply took clannishness to an extreme, and once having admitted a fellow into their circle, their cold manners fell away. So he took no offence, and said, ‘Sir, I can hardly imagine where else you believe the difficulty might lie.’

      ‘No, you cannot,’ Portland said, uncommunicatively. ‘Well, and I am not going to borrow trouble; they may decide to send you somewhere else entirely, not to Loch Laggan. But I am running ahead of myself: the real point is that you and Temeraire must get to England for your training soonest; once you are there, Aerial Command can best decide how to deal with you.’

      ‘But can he reach England from here, with no place to stop along the way?’ Laurence asked, diverted by concern for Temeraire. ‘It must be more than a thousand miles; he has never flown further than from one end of the island to the other.’

      ‘Closer to two thousand, and no; we would never risk him so,’ Portland said. ‘There is a transport coming over from Nova Scotia; a couple of dragons joined our division from it three days ago, so we have its position pretty well fixed, and I think it is less than a hundred miles away. We will escort you to it; if Temeraire gets tired, Laetificat can support him for long enough to give him a breather.’

      Laurence was relieved to hear the proposed plan, but the conversation made him aware how very unpleasant his circumstances would be until his ignorance was mended. If Portland had waved off his fears, Laurence would have had no way of judging the matter for himself. Even a hundred miles was a good distance; it would take them three hours or more in the air. But that at least he felt confident they could manage; they had flown the length of the island three times just the other day, while visiting Sir Edward, and Temeraire had not seemed tired in the least.

      ‘When do you propose leaving?’ he asked.

      ‘The sooner the better; the transport is headed away from us, after all,’ Portland said. ‘Can you be ready in half an hour?’

      Laurence stared. ‘I suppose I can, if I have most of my things sent back to the Reliant for transport,’ he said dubiously.

      ‘Why would you?’ Portland said. ‘Laet can carry anything you have; we shan’t weigh Temeraire down.’

      ‘No, I only mean that my things are not packed,’ Laurence said. ‘I am used to waiting for the tide; I see I will have to be a little more beforehand with the world from now on.’

      Portland still looked puzzled, and when he came into Laurence’s room twenty minutes later he stared openly at the sea chest that Laurence had turned to this new purpose. There had hardly been time to fill half of it; Laurence paused in the act of putting in a couple of blankets to take up the empty space at the top. ‘Is something wrong?’ he asked, looking down; the chest was not so large that he thought it would give Laetificat any difficulty.

      ‘No wonder you needed the time; do you always pack so carefully?’ Portland said. ‘Could you not just throw the rest of your things into a few bags? We can strap them on easily enough.’

      Laurence swallowed his first response; he no longer needed to wonder why the aviators looked, to a man, rumpled in their dress; he had imagined it due to some advanced technique of flying. ‘No, thank you; Fernao will take my other things to the Reliant, and I can manage perfectly well with what I have here,’ he said, putting the blankets in; he strapped them down and made all fast, then locked the chest. ‘There; I am at your service now.’

      Portland called in a couple of his midwingmen to carry the chest; Laurence followed them outside, and was witness, for the first time, to the operation of a full aerial crew. Temeraire and he both watched with interest from the side as Laetificat stood patiently under the swarming ensigns, who ran up and down her sides as easily as they hung below her belly or climbed upon her back. The boys were raising up two canvas enclosures, one above and one below; these were like small, lopsided tents, framed with many thin and flexible strips of metal. The front panels which formed the bulk of the tent were long and sloped, evidently to present as little resistance to the wind as possible, and the sides and back were made of netting.

      The ensigns all looked to be below the age of twelve; the midwingmen ranged more widely, just as aboard a ship, and now four older ones came staggering with the weight of a heavy leather-wrapped chain they dragged in front of Laetificat. The dragon lifted it herself and laid it over her withers, just in front of the tent, and the ensigns hurried to secure it to the rest of the harness with many straps and smaller chains.

      Using this strap, they then slung a sort of hammock made of chain links beneath Laetificat’s belly. Laurence saw his own chest tossed inside along with a collection of other bags and parcels; he winced at the haphazard way in which the baggage was stowed, and was doubly grateful that he had been careful in his packing: he was confident they might turn his chest completely about a dozen times without casting his things into disarray.

      A large pad of leather and wool, perhaps the thickness of a man’s arm, was laid on top of all, then the hammock’s edges were drawn up and hooked to the harness as widely as possible, spreading the weight of the contents and pressing them close to the dragon’s belly. Laurence felt a sense of dissatisfaction with the proceedings; he privately thought he would have to find a better arrangement for Temeraire, when the time came.

      However, the process had one significant advantage over naval preparations: from beginning to end it took fifteen minutes, and then they were looking at a dragon in full light-duty rig. Laetificat reared up on her legs, shook out her wings, and beat them a half dozen times; the wind was strong enough to nearly stagger

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