The Temeraire Series Books 1-3: Temeraire, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War

‘He is an Imperial, sir, a Chinese breed,’ Laurence said, torn between not wishing to show off and an undeniable pleasure in doing just so. Choiseul’s astonished reaction, though decently restrained, was highly satisfying, but then Laurence was obliged to explain the circumstances of Temeraire’s acquisition, and he could not help but feel somewhat awkward when relating the triumphant capture of a French ship and a French egg to a Frenchman.

But Choiseul was clearly used to the situation and heard the story with at least the appearance of complaisance, though he offered no remark. Though Sutton was inclined to dwell on the French loss a little smugly, Laurence hurried on to ask what Choiseul would be doing in the covert.

‘I understand there is a formation in training, and that Praecursoris and I are to join in the manoeuvres: some notion I believe of our serving as a relief, when circumstances allow,’ Choiseul said. ‘Celeritas hopes also that Praecursoris may be of some assistance in the training of your heaviest beasts for formation flying: we have always flown in formation, for close on fourteen years now.’

A thundering rush of wings interrupted their conversation as the other dragons were called to the hunting grounds, the first four having finished their meal, and Temeraire and Praecursoris both made an attempt to land at the same convenient outcropping nearby: Laurence was startled to see Temeraire bare his teeth and flare his ruff at the older dragon. ‘I beg you to excuse me,’ he said hastily, and hurried to find another place, calling Temeraire, and with relief saw him wheel away and follow.

‘I would have come to you,’ Temeraire said, a little reproachfully, casting a narrowed eye at Praecursoris, who was now occupying the contested perch and speaking quietly with Choiseul.

‘They are guests here; it is only courteous to give way,’ Laurence said. ‘I had no notion that you were so fierce in matters of precedence, my dear.’

Temeraire furrowed the ground before him with his claws. ‘He is not any bigger than I am,’ he said. ‘And he is not a Longwing, so he does not spit poison, and there are no fire-breathing dragons in Britain; I do not see why he is any better than I am.’

‘He is not one jot better, not at all,’ Laurence said, stroking the tensed foreleg. ‘Precedence is merely a matter of formality, and you are perfectly within your rights to eat with the others. Pray do not be quarrelsome, however; they have fled the Continent, to be away from Bonaparte.’

‘Oh?’ Temeraire’s ruff smoothed out gradually against his neck, and he looked at the strange dragon with more interest. ‘But they are speaking French; if they are French, why are they afraid of Bonaparte?’

‘They are royalists, loyal to the Bourbon kings,’ Laurence said. ‘I dare say they left after the Jacobins put the King to death; it was very dreadful in France for a while, I am afraid, and though Bonaparte is at least not chopping people’s heads off anymore, he is scarcely much better in their eyes; I assure you they despise him worse than we do.’

‘Well, I am sorry if I was rude,’ Temeraire murmured, and straightened up to address Praecursoris. ‘Veuillez m’excuser, si je vous ai dérangé,’ he said, to Laurence’s astonishment.

Praecursoris turned around. ‘Mais non, pas du tout,’ he answered mildly, and inclined his head. ‘Permettez que je vous présente Choiseul, mon capitaine,’ he added.

‘Et voici Laurence, le mien,’ Temeraire said. ‘Laurence, pray bow,’ he added, in an undertone, when Laurence only stood staring.

Laurence at once made his leg; he of course could not interrupt the formal exchange, but he was bursting with curiosity, and as soon as they were winging their way down to the lake for Temeraire’s bath, he demanded, ‘But how on earth do you come to speak French?’

Temeraire turned his head about. ‘What do you mean? Is it very unusual to speak French? It was not at all difficult.’

‘Well, it is prodigious strange; so far as I know you have never heard a word of it: certainly not from me, for I am lucky if I can say my bonjours without embarrassing myself,’ Laurence said.

‘I am not surprised that he can speak French,’ Celeritas said, when Laurence asked him later that afternoon, at the training grounds, ‘but only that you should not have heard him do so before; do you mean to say Temeraire did not speak French when he first cracked the shell? He spoke English directly?’

‘Why, yes,’ Laurence said. ‘I confess we were surprised, but only to hear him speak at all so soon. Is it unusual?’

‘That he spoke, no; we learn language through the shell,’ Celeritas said. ‘And as he was aboard a French vessel in the months before his hatching, I am not surprised at all that he should know that tongue. I am far more surprised that he was able to speak English after only a week aboard. Fluently?’

‘From the first moment,’ Laurence said, pleased at this fresh evidence of Temeraire’s unique gifts. ‘You have been forever surprising me, my dear,’ he added, patting Temeraire’s neck, making him preen with satisfaction.

But Temeraire continued somewhat more prickly, particularly where Praecursoris was concerned: no open animosity, nor any particular hostility, but he was clearly anxious to show himself an equal to the older dragon, particularly once Celeritas began to include the Chanson-de-Guerre in their manoeuvres.

Praecursoris was not, Laurence was secretly glad to see, as fluid or graceful in the air as Temeraire; but his experience and that of his captain counted for a great deal, and they knew and had mastered many of the formation manoeuvres already. Temeraire grew very intent on his work; Laurence sometimes came out from dinner and found Temeraire flying alone over the lake, practising the manoeuvres he had once found so boring, and on more than one occasion the dragon even asked to sacrifice part of their reading time to additional work. He would have worked himself to exhaustion daily if Laurence had not restrained him.

At last Laurence went to Celeritas to ask his advice, hoping to learn some way of easing Temeraire’s intensity, or perhaps persuading Celeritas to separate the two dragons. But the training master listened to his objections and said calmly, ‘Captain Laurence, you are thinking of your dragon’s happiness. That is as it should be, but I must think first of his training, and the needs of the Corps. Do you argue he is not progressing quickly, and to great levels of skill, since Praecursoris arrived?’

Laurence could only stare; the idea that Celeritas had deliberately promoted the rivalry to encourage Temeraire was first startling, then almost offensive. ‘Sir, Temeraire has always been willing, has always put forth his best efforts,’ he began, angrily, and only stopped when Celeritas snorted to interrupt him.

‘Pull up, Captain,’ he said, with a rough amusement. ‘I am not insulting him. The truth is he is a little too intelligent to be an ideal formation fighter. If the situation were different, we would make him a formation leader or an independent, and he would do very well. But as matters stand, given his weight, we must have him in formation, and that means he must learn rote manoeuvres. They are simply not enough to hold his attention. It is not a very common complaint, but I have seen it before, and the signs are unmistakable.’

Laurence unhappily could offer no argument; there was perfect truth in Celeritas’s remarks. Seeing that Laurence had fallen silent, the training master continued, ‘This rivalry adds enough spice to overcome a natural boredom that would shortly progress to frustration. Encourage him, praise him, keep him confident in your affection, and he will not suffer from a bit of squabbling with another male; it is very natural, at his age, and better he should set himself against Praecursoris than Maximus; Praecursoris is old enough not to take it seriously.’

Laurence could not be so sanguine; Celeritas did not see how Temeraire fretted. But neither could Laurence deny that his remarks were motivated from a selfish perspective: he disliked seeing Temeraire driving himself so hard. But of course he needed to be driven hard; they all did.

Here in the placid green north, it was too easy to forget that Britain was in great danger. Villeneuve and the French navy were still on the loose; according to dispatches, Nelson had chased them all the way to the West Indies only to be eluded again, and now was desperately seeking them in the Atlantic. Villeneuve’s intention was certainly to meet with the fleet out of Brest and then attempt to seize the straits of Dover; Bonaparte had a vast number of transports cramming every port along the French coast, waiting only for such a break in the Channel defences to ferry over the massive army of invasion.

Laurence had served on blockade duty for many long months, and he knew well how difficult it was to maintain discipline through the endless, unvarying days with no enemy in sight. The distractions of more company, a wider landscape, books, games: these things made the duty of training more pleasant by far, but he now recognized that in their own way they were as insidious as monotony.

So he only bowed, and said, ‘I understand your design, sir; thank you for the explanation.’ But he returned to Temeraire still determined to curb the almost obsessive practising, and if possible to find an alternative means of engaging the dragon’s interest in the manoeuvres.

These were the circumstances which first gave him the notion of explaining formation tactics to Temeraire. He did so more for Temeraire’s sake than his own, hoping to give the dragon some more intellectual interest in the manoeuvres. But Temeraire followed the subject with ease, and shortly the lessons became real discussion, as valuable to Laurence as to Temeraire, and more than compensating for his lack of participation in the debates which the captains held amongst themselves.

Together they embarked on designing a series of their own manoeuvres, taking advantage of Temeraire’s unusual flying capabilities, which could be fitted into the slower and more methodical pace of the formation. Celeritas himself had spoken of designing such manoeuvres, but the pressing need for the formation had forced him to put aside the plan for the immediate future.

Laurence salvaged an old flight-table from the attics, recruited Hollin’s help to repair its broken leg, and set it up in Temeraire’s clearing under his dragon’s interested eyes. It was a sort of vast diorama set upon a table, with a latticework on top; Laurence did not have a set of the proper scale figures of dragons to hang from it, but he substituted whittled and coloured bits of wood, and by tying these with bits of thread from the lattice, they were able to display three-dimensional positions for each other’s consideration.

Temeraire from the beginning displayed an intuitive grasp of aerial movement. He could instantly declare whether a manoeuvre was feasible or not, and describe the movements necessary to bring it about if so; the initial inspiration for a new manoeuvre was most often his. Laurence in turn could better assess the relative military strengths of various positions, and suggest such modifications as would improve the force which might be brought to bear.

Their discussions were lively and vocal, and attracted the attention of the rest of his crew; Granby tentatively asked to observe, and when Laurence gave leave, was shortly followed by the second lieutenant, Evans, and many of the midwingmen. Their years of training and experience gave them a foundation of knowledge which both Laurence and Temeraire lacked, and their suggestions further refined the design.

‘Sir, the others have asked me to propose to you that perhaps we might try some of the new manoeuvres,’ Granby said to him, some few weeks into the project. ‘We would be more than happy to sacrifice our evenings to the work; it would be infamous not to have a chance of showing what he can do.’

Laurence was deeply moved, not merely by their enthusiasm, but by seeing that Granby and the crew felt the same desire to see Temeraire acknowledged and approved. He was very glad indeed to find the others as proud of and for Temeraire as he himself was. ‘If we have enough hands present tomorrow evening, perhaps we may,’ Laurence said.

Every officer from his three runners on up was present ten minutes early. Laurence looked over them a little bemused as he and Temeraire descended from their daily trip to the lake; he only now realized, with all of them lined up and waiting, that his aerial crew wore their full uniforms, even now in this impromptu session. The other crews were often to be seen without coats or neckcloths, particularly in the recent heat; he could not help but take this as a compliment to his own habit.

Mr. Hollin and the ground crew were also ready and waiting; even though Temeraire was inclined to fidget in his excitement, they swiftly had him in his combat-duty harness, and the aerial crew came swarming aboard.

‘All aboard and latched on, sir,’ Granby said, taking up his own launch position on Temeraire’s right shoulder.

‘Very well. Temeraire, we will begin with the standard clear-weather patrol pattern twice, then shift to the modified version on my signal,’ Laurence said.

Temeraire nodded, his eyes bright, and launched himself into the air. It was the simplest of their new manoeuvres, and Temeraire had little difficulty following it; the greater problem, Laurence saw at once, as Temeraire pulled out of the last corkscrewing turn and back into his standard position, would be in accustoming the crew. The riflemen had missed at least half their targets, and Temeraire’s sides were stained where the lightly weighted sacks full of ash that stood for bombs in practice had hit him instead of falling below.

‘Well, Mr. Granby, we have some work ahead of us before we can make a creditable showing of it,’ Laurence said, and Granby nodded ruefully.

‘Indeed, sir; perhaps if he flew a little slower at first?’ Granby said.

‘I think perhaps we must adjust our thinking as well,’ Laurence said, studying the pattern of ash marks. ‘We cannot be hurling bombs during these quick turns he makes, there is no way we can be sure of missing him. So we cannot work steadily: we must wait and release the equivalent of a full broadside in the moments when he is level. We will be at greater risk of missing a target entirely, but that risk can be borne; the other cannot.’

Temeraire flew in an easy circuit while the topmen and bellmen hastily adjusted their bombing gear; this time, when they attempted the manoeuvre again, Laurence saw the sacks falling away, and there were no fresh marks to be seen on Temeraire’s sides. The riflemen, also waiting for the level parts of the run, improved their record as well, and after half-a-dozen repetitions, Laurence was well-satisfied with the results.

‘When we can deliver our full allotment of bombs and achieve perhaps an eighty-per cent success rate in our gunnery, on this and the other four new manoeuvres, I will consider our work worth bringing to Celeritas’s attention,’ Laurence said, when they had all dismounted and the ground crew were stripping Temeraire and polishing the dust and grime off his hide. ‘And I think it eminently achievable: I commend all of you, gentlemen, on a most creditable performance.’

Laurence had previously been sparing with his praise, not wishing to seem as though he was courting the crew’s affections, but now he felt he could scarcely be overly enthusiastic, and he was pleased to see the heartfelt response of his officers to the approval. They were uniformly eager to continue, and after another four weeks of practice, Laurence was indeed beginning to think them ready to perform for a wider audience when the decision was taken from his hands.

‘That was an interesting variation you were flying last evening, Captain,’ Celeritas said to him at the end of the morning session, as the dragons of the formation landed and the crews disembarked. ‘Let us see you fly it tomorrow in formation.’ With that he nodded and dismissed them, and Laurence was left to call together his crew and Temeraire for a hasty final practice.

Temeraire was inclined to be anxious, late that evening, after the others had gone back inside and he and Laurence were sitting quietly together in the dark, too tired to do more than rest in each other’s company.