Crucible of Gold

Temeraire hovered above her.

He climbed back up alone, without taking any men out of her, so it was not a mere ruse; Temeraire sighed, but when Laurence had reached his back and clasped the carabiners on again he said, “South-south-west, my dear, there is not a moment to lose. Captain Hoerug tells me they spoke the Dapple this morning: a forty-eight and a crack frigate, and if we can catch her before she goes beyond our range, we will have our men.”

Laurence scoured the ocean with his glass, and put every one of his small crew to the same task in all directions: a flash of light off a window, the gleam of a lantern when twilight came on, anything would do; and finally near the limits of the range he had privately defined to himself, Baggy called down uncertainly, “Captain? Is that her, there-away; I think I see a flash, maybe.”

Dapple sent up a blue light as they neared, and seeing their flag hung out her colors, an unsuspecting welcome: her captain would not expect to be pillaged from aloft, of course. Laurence did not recall who had Dapple presently; there had been a vast and somber reshuffling in the wake of the disaster at Shoeburyness, and he climbed down preoccupied with working out how many officers she might be able to give him. Only when he was on the deck, amid the familiar life of a Navy ship, and found himself asked for his name, was he recalled abruptly to the awkwardness of his position. To most officers of Britain, he was yet a condemned criminal and a traitor: his reinstatement would surely not yet have made official news.

“Captain William Laurence,” he said, “of Temeraire,” and saw the starts of confusion in the younger officers, the whispers traveling hastily to enlighten those unfortunate enough not to recognize their names; and the looks thrown skyward into the dark, where Temeraire’s black hide was only a shadow against the sky.

The ship’s third lieutenant, a young man scarce twenty years by his looks, had been directing the men into throwing out the pontoon-decks by which they could have offered a dragon a landing place. “Hold there, if you please, Mr. Rightley,” he said, and looked at his captain.

“Captain Adair Galloway,” that gentleman, of an age with Laurence, said slowly without offering a hand, “and sir, I believe I require some explanation.”

“You shall have it, sir,” Laurence said, “but it must be brief: I am sorry to come to you with such demands, but I must have every man you can spare; and if possible some you would find it hard to part with.” He saw his words travel the deck with even more astonishment than his name; and Galloway looked still more bewildered. Laurence knew him by name and a little by reputation: a stickler, and his ship looked it; fresh from the Atlantic crossing and on the verge of a run at the Horn, her paint gleamed new-bright and her brass shone warmly beneath the lanterns; her officers were every man of them in uniforms that would have done justice to a dinner-party, and there was a sense of quiet order in all the lines of the ship.

She was, in short, run along the methods he would once have preferred himself, Laurence realized, rueful and aware of his marked trousers, his dull and unblacked boots, his yellowing linen. However, there was this absurdity in his favor: he had four years on Galloway on the post-list; he had seniority. “Shall we go inside, sir?” he said. “Temeraire would be glad of a short rest, if you can give it to him; but we must be aloft again as quickly as we may: there is not a moment to lose.”

With few alternatives, Galloway showed him into the stern cabin, and shut the door on his interested crew; Laurence knew, of course, that if not every ear on the ship would be pressed directly to the door, they would still hear the conversation repeated soon enough. “Sir,” he said, “I hope you will pardon my forthrightness, but I would address your hesitation at once: I am restored to the list as of 11 November in the last year. But my personal circumstances are of little importance. There are two French transports in Rio: we mean to cut them out, and we have ten dragons to do it with; but I have only two hundred men for prize-crew, and not an officer among them.”

Temeraire hovered impatiently, until the pontoon-deck had been tied down at last: it was not very large, and he had to let himself down very cautiously with his belly quite full of air to keep from swamping it entirely. “There; that will do,” he said, swinging his head round to the ship’s railing: a line of staring sailors backed hurriedly away, except for one young officer who blanched but kept his place.

“Thank you: although pray secure that third line a bit better; that knot is very ugly and is sure to slip in a moment: it would not be in the least pleasant to have this come apart beneath me, and I suppose I should have to pull on the ship to get out of the water again. How many of you do you suppose will come with us?” he asked, unable to resist inquiry.

He did not receive any answer but stammers until Laurence came out with the captain, who looked very displeased, but nevertheless gave orders for forty men to embark, and four of his officers. For the officers, Laurence had Gerry sling over some carabiners and spare harness, and Temeraire put them one after another onto his back, beginning with the third lieutenant, Creed, and ending with a midshipman of fifteen named Wren. The men reluctantly climbed into a makeshift sack upon the deck, which Temeraire himself drew up and stuffed into his belly-netting, where the sailors might climb out of it with some awkwardness but reasonable security.

Forty men more! Temeraire thought triumphantly as he lifted away. Though of course these new recruits should soon go into service aboard the transports, and would thus pass from his purview, the sheer number seemed quite an achievement however transitory; and anyway perhaps they would not be able to take the transports, in which case they might remain with the other sailors as a part of his extended crew, after all.

So he was perfectly satisfied, when he came to camp and let them off; and having eaten an excellent meal of roasted cattle stuffed with the sweet ripe banana fruit he fell asleep until roused unceremoniously several hours later by a shove. “Ow,” he said, opening one eye, “whatever is that for?”

“This is no time to be sleeping,” Iskierka said. “Get up and help me stop this nonsense: they mean to go take those ships without us.”

“I am sure you have just misunderstood,” Temeraire said, sitting up yawning. “Lily and Maximus would not —”

“Not them,” Iskierka said impatiently. “Granby and Laurence!”

Midshipman Wren sat in the front of the boat softly mouthing the time; the sound did not reach the stern where Laurence sat, and the oars dipped silent into the water and rose out again smooth, scattering only a few drops over the waves in their swift arcs before they dived again. Lieutenant Creed sat in the stern of the boat immediately to port, his thin face just visible by its pallor of excitement. He could not fail of being made post for this, of course, if they succeeded: a boy of twenty, to take into charge a transport; the sort of leap of fortune men dreamed of in the Navy.

Or, as O’Dea had gloomily observed on their embarkation, “As like we will end by feeding all the monstrous serpents of the deep, Captain.” Laurence glanced to starboard: Granby’s boat there, rather a tub, which had been acquired from a fisherman down the coast and laden with a heap of chainmail; past him Harcourt’s boat. Laurence had made a vague gesture at trying to dissuade her coming; but they were cramming aboard every last man down to those who could only dubiously lay claim to the name—even young Sipho, clutching the signal-rocket intently— and she scornfully disdained the attempt. When he turned away subsequently, Roland’s eye had met his with a martial light; so there he had not even tried, but contented himself with assigning her to take charge of the second of the boats assigned to lay on the chainmail: at least she would not be on deck until the end.

Their flotilla in miniature crept mouse-softly across the harbor towards the towering bulk of the transports: the Polonaise and the Maréchal. For illumination they had only the moonlight above and the bonfire in the city behind them where the Tswana had gathered for their usual nightly conclave: its noise carried louder over the water than the noise of the other boats, and the glare, Laurence hoped, would dazzle the eyes of the look-outs.

As they drew nearer, Lieutenant Creed looked over at Laurence and nodded, and his boat split away towards the Maréchal, drawing half-a-dozen of the others along in its train. They had drawn alongside the Polonaise, and Laurence opened up his glass and looked: the officer of the watch was down near the stern beside the wheel, the hands on deck made sleeping humps amid the cannon on the quarterdeck, and the lookout in the near crow’s nest yawned against his arm: a ship in harbor, at peace.

Laurence nodded to Seaman Ewyll, waiting in the prow: a sturdy if stolid young man, who flung up the rope