Page 49 of League of Dragons (Temeraire)
This produced a half-cry of protest from Fidelitas, stifled, and an outright one from Ricarlee, who sat up sharp. “Why, there’s naught fair in that,” he said. “There wasn’t anything in those carts we took but some sacks of grain, and a few scraps of this and that.”
“Isee nothing to dislike in it,” Cavernus said, very loudly, and the other formation-leaders murmured in agreement.
“You may have a fair share, earned with the company, or you may scrape along as chance serves you,” Temeraire said crisply, when the murmuring had died away. “We are certainly not going to encourage selfish pillaging, or even make an attempt, which anyone might see could only lead to endless argument, to carry out an accounting of pillage after every engagement.”
“On the contrary,” Laurence said, “any remaining shares will be allotted after each engagement in accord with the usual principles of prize-money, to encourage valor, attention to orders, and reward the wise exercise of initiative. Temeraire, if you will be so good as to make note of the particular awards. I am delighted to recognize Cavernus, first, for steadfastness under fire, and for bringing down the Petit Chevalier: ten additional shares.”
This fascinating and highly agreeable proceeding occupied the entire golden afternoon to the satisfaction of all, except, it seemed, the captains, who began to fidget even before the first hour had concluded. Poole was even so rude as to break in and say, “How much longer are we meant to stand for this litany of—”
“Roger!” Fidelitas hissed, with a glance of mortification, while every other head turned censorious looks in their direction, especially Cavernus, whose wing dragon Maxilla was presently being allotted two additional shares for having held position in the face of a heavier beast opposite.
None of this silenced Poole. “You have already been shut out,” he said to Fidelitas, just as though he were insensible to the importance of understanding the rules of division which should apply tofutureinstances, “and you must be hungry by now; you have not eaten to-day at all, yet.”
“Any dragon wishing to be excused may of course consider themselves dismissed,” Temeraire said in austere tones.
“No, no!” Fidelitas said, curling his tail around Poole to block him from general view, and bending his head down to whisper urgently, “I will eatlater.”
“Pray, Admiral Laurence,” Cavernus said loudly, her eye still fixed on Fidelitas, “will you be so kind as to repeat that last award? I should be sorry not to be able to convey the exact particulars to Maxilla.”
Laurence obliged her, of course, and the other captains at least made no further attempts to interrupt, although they were all of them—even dear Granby, Temeraire was sorry to see—unreasonably inattentive, and insisted on walking up and down in the clearing and talking to one another instead of paying close attention to all the highly interesting details of the awards. Several of the captains even had to be nudged to the edges of the clearing by their beasts to keep them from becoming a distraction.
Sadly, one could not indulge in such pleasures forever; at last, Laurence had to finish. The lovely ledger was closed, and Temeraire with deep satisfaction reviewed his scroll, and the charming way in which the full tally of shares added precisely to one thousand, and how each number of shares should individually be multiplied by four, and many of them thereby increased to two digits.
“I should add,” Laurence said, to crown the glorious occasion, “the goods taken having consisted in charqui, that any dragon wishing to take some portion of their share in this meat may have it at the value of two pounds three shillings the bale, equal in ration to a cow of twelve pounds six shillings four pence, for which they shall be credited.”
The meeting broke up on this delightful conclusion, as everyone collected their captains and went away engaged in calculations. “Why, Windle, only think: that is ten pounds and three shillings difference,” Obituria said, “and I have four shares, that is sixteen pounds, so I can buy six bales, and when I have exchanged those for the cows, that will make seventy-three pounds and eighteen shillings.” Windle only gawked up at her in the most muttonheaded way, as though he had not followed.
“I will have it brought round to every formation-leader’s clearing,” Temeraire promised, of the scroll, as the others left, several of them inquiring about a chance of looking it over. “And to yours as well,” he added to Ricarlee, magnanimously; he felt a good deal less irritated now by the ferals’ pillaging. “Gerry, pray roll it and tie it carefully, and I suppose you had better have a couple of the ground crewmen to help you carry it—steady men, if you please, Mr. O’Dea, who will not let it get wet, or spattered, or dirty.”
When everyone had gone, Laurence sat heavily down in a camp chair with rather an explosive sigh and said to one of the new runners, “Brandy-and-water, if you please, Winters.” He drank this off without a pause and said aloud, “Like a very damned merchant,” incomprehensibly, “but we will see if it answers; I think it may.”
—
Laurence was half sorry to find the extent to which his and Temeraire’s stratagem, which he could not help but find a little contemptible, did answer. He was surprised to discover in the circuit he made through their encampment the next day that the dragons had set their signal-ensigns to drilling them in the flags—this, even though older dragons by and large had a great deal of difficulty in learning anything resembling a new language. Laurence could not understand it immediately, until he reviewed the list of awards and discovered that he had mentionedclose attention to signalsseven times. And when Laurence visited the Scottish ferals’ clearing, he found them all present and accounted for: the first time since their departure from Dover that such a remarkable event had occurred. Not a one had stolen out of camp overnight to try for private pillaging. The handful of Ricarlee’s beasts who had stayed aloft and fought with Requiescat—and who had been rewarded with an extra share apiece—were cock-of-the-walk, and the subject of envious sighs.
He grimly accepted his own victory, and having finished his rounds asked Minnow to take him into the city, where the new headquarters had been established: Major-General von Wittgenstein beaming and delighted with everybody, and despite the surfeit of hangers-on surrounding him and the general chaos produced by too many men without any real work to do, a spirit of energy and confidence suffused the entire establishment, which Laurence could not but witness with a pang of envy.
“Admiral Laurence!” Wittgenstein cried, on seeing him, and came around to shake his hand again. During the terrible struggle of the previous year, he had been forced to abandon St. Petersburg to Oudinot and Saint-Cyr, and his satisfaction at liberating Berlin had been doubled into joy by having now avenged that painful loss. “The Cossacks tell me they have all certainly crossed the river: there is not a French soldier east of the Elbe, God be thanked! They have fallen back on the Saale. I have just sent couriers to the Tsar and to His Majesty King Frederick with a full accounting of the battle, and you may be sure they have both been acquainted with the noble performance of your beasts.”
Laurence could not be encouraged by this generous remark, to him a painful reminder that their commanders had very little expectation of the discipline of dragons; he could only be glad in a sour way, that the report would go far to strengthen his own position. “Is there any word about Napoleon himself?” he asked.
Wittgenstein waved a hand. “Still in Paris, they say!” but added, “Come, step inside,” and took him to a smaller back chamber; here were only a couple of staff-officers, laboring intently over a sheaf of intelligence-reports. “The latest word is he has raised an army of nearly two hundred thousand men and four hundred dragons, at Mainz,” Wittgenstein said quietly, when the door was closed; a piece of intelligence that could not be called heartening, and it was no wonder he preferred to share it in private. “Blücher will cross into Saxony next week, to liberate Dresden and Leipzig, and we hope persuade the King of Saxony to join the alliance. I do not need to tell you, Admiral, how necessary to that end it will be to avoid pillage in his countryside. I understand from Admiral Dyhern that you are supplying your entire force on twenty kine, daily?”
“And twenty tons of wheat, sir,” Laurence said slowly, already anticipating the coming question.
“Admiral Dyhern has been ordered by His Majesty to join General Blücher,” Wittgenstein said—Dyhern having himself also been promoted; most of the senior Prussian officers had been quietly retired in the years since Jena, and every chance taken of pushing forward younger and more competent men. “In my judgment, and that of Field Marshal Kutuzov, you and your dragons are urgently wanted there, and our victory here to-day only makes that more desirable. But we do not demand it, Admiral, if you do not think it possible to supply your force there.”
The question was a difficult one indeed. Laurence could manage it, he thought, but not without putting all the dragons on porridge, even the ones whose captains demanded the official ration of meat, and not without the risk of going hungry for a day now and again. Ordinarily he would have scorned such small concerns under these circumstances: if Napoleon truly had raised four hundred dragons already at Mainz, he could not be held unless the British dragons came. But Laurence could not rely on his captains to reconcile their beasts to short commons, and dragons themselves had little tolerance for going hungry when there was a handsome sheepfold to be seen over the next hill, whether or not the sheep were theirs for the taking.
This last concern at least, Laurence could air to Wittgenstein without feeling that he exposed the Corps to any particular shame; then he had only to swallow his personal pride, at asking for what seemed to him almost the power to bribe his own beasts. “If you will pardon me, sir,” he said unhappily, “I will say what I know must have an unfortunate appearance of self-interest: it would be of inexpressible value to me to have further captures of supply, of the sort you made over to us yesterday, which I might award as prizes among the beasts to encourage them to maintain discipline.”
“Among the beasts?” Wittgenstein said, frowning. “I do not understand. You mean your officers—you think they will keep them in line, if—”
“Sir,” Laurence broke in, preferring to be rude than hear so mortifying a character given to his officers. “Sir, I beg your pardon; no, I mean among the beasts themselves.”
Wittgenstein stared, then gave a small explosive snort of laughter. “What do dragons care for prize-money? We do not have heaps of gold to give them.” But when Laurence assured him that the beasts did indeed care, passionately, he was ready to believe. “But money is in short supply everywhere, Admiral,” he said.
“I am aware of it, sir,” Laurence said. “I do not require funds: if you can only grant us further quantities of charqui, or cattle, or grain, acquired from the enemy, that will do.”
