his nostrils made small puffs of fog in the crisp air.
Leaving him to sleep, Laurence walked quickly back to the covert headquarters; the path through the dragon-fields was lit with hanging lanterns, and in any case he could see the windows up ahead. An easterly wind was carrying the salt air in from the harbor, mingled with the coppery smell of the warm dragons, already familiar and hardly noticed. He had a warm room on the second floor, with a window that looked out onto the back gardens, and his baggage had already been unpacked. He looked at the wrinkled clothes ruefully; evidently the servants at the covert had no more notion of packing than the aviators themselves did.
There was a great noise of raised voices as he came into the senior officers’ dining room, despite the late hour; the other captains of the formation were assembled at the long table where their own meal was going largely untouched.
“Is there any word about Lily?” he asked, taking the empty chair between Berkley and Dulcia’s captain, Chenery; Captain Harcourt and Captain Little of Immortalis were the only ones not present.
“He cut her to the bone, the great coward, but that is all we know,” Chenery said. “They are still sewing her up, and she hasn’t taken anything to eat.”
Laurence knew that was a bad sign; injured dragons usually became ravenous, unless they were in very great pain. “Maximus and Messoria?” he asked, looking at Berkley and Sutton.
“Ate well, and fast asleep,” Berkley said; his usually placid face was drawn and haggard, and he had a streak of dark blood running across his forehead into his bristly hair. “That was damned quick of you today, Laurence; we’d have lost her.”
“Not quick enough,” Laurence said quietly, forestalling the murmur of agreement; he had not the least desire to be praised for this day’s work, though he was proud of what Temeraire had done.
“Quicker than the rest of us,” Sutton said, draining his glass; from the looks of his cheeks and nose, it was not his first. “They caught us properly flat-footed, damned Frogs. What the devil they were doing to have a patrol there, I would like to know.”
“The route from Laggan to Dover isn’t much of a secret, Sutton,” Little said, coming to the table; they dragged chairs about to make room for him at their end of the table. “Immortalis is settled and eating, by the by; speaking of which, please give me that chicken here.” He wrenched off a leg with his hands and tore into it hungrily.
Looking at him, Laurence felt the first stirrings of appetite; the other captains seemed to feel the same way, and for the next ten minutes there was silence while they passed the plates around and concentrated on their food; they had none of them eaten since a hasty breakfast before dawn at the covert near Middlesbrough. The wine was not very good, but Laurence drank several glasses anyway.
“I expect they’ve been lurking about between Felixstowe and Dover, just waiting to get a drop on us,” Little said after a while, wiping his mouth and continuing his earlier thought. “By God, if you ever catch me taking Immortalis that way again; overland it is for us from now on, unless we’re looking for a fight.”
“Right you are,” Chenery said, with heartfelt agreement. “Hello, Choiseul; pull up a chair.” He shuffled over a little more, and the royalist captain joined them.
“Gentlemen, I am very happy to say that Lily has begun to eat; I have just come from Captain Harcourt,” he said, and raised a glass. “To their health, may I propose?”
“Hear, hear,” Sutton said, refilling his own glass; they all joined in the toast, and there was a general sigh of relief.
“Here you all are, then; eating, I hope? Good, very good.” Admiral Lenton had come up to join them; he was the commander-in-chief of the Channel Division, and thus all those dragons at the Dover covert. “No, don’t be fools, don’t get up,” he said impatiently, as Laurence and Choiseul began to rise, and the others belatedly followed. “After the day you’ve had, for Heaven’s sake. Here, pass that bottle over, Sutton. So, you all know that Lily is eating? Yes, the surgeons hope she will be flying short distances in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime you have at least nicely mauled a couple of their heavy-combat beasts. A toast to your formation, gentlemen.”