Throne of Jade Page 0,37
Temeraire said unexpectedly, and Laurence turned to see the great deep blue eyes studying him. "Go inside, Laurence; you must get well, and I will not let anyone hurt Riley. Or the Chinese, I suppose, if you would not like it," he added, though without much enthusiasm.
Laurence nodded, tiredly, and heaved himself up again; the threat of danger was over, he thought, at least for the moment, and there was no real sense in his staying above. "You are comfortable enough?"
"Yes, with the heat from below I am perfectly warm," Temeraire said; indeed Laurence could feel the warmth of the dragondeck even through the soles of his boots.
It was a great deal more pleasant in out of the wind; his leg stabbed unpleasantly twice as he climbed down to the upper berth deck, but his arms were up to his weight and held him until the spasm passed; he managed to reach his cabin without falling.
Laurence had several pleasant small round windows, not drafty, and near the ship's galley as he was, the cabin was still warm despite the wind; one of the runners had lit the hanging lantern, and Gibbon's book was lying still open on the lockers. He slept almost at once, despite the pain; the easy sway of his hanging cot was more familiar than any bed, and the low susurration of the water along the sides of the ship a wordless and constant reassurance.
He came awake all at once, breath jolted out of his body before his eyes even quite opened: noise more felt than heard. The deck abruptly slanted, and he flung out a hand to keep from striking the ceiling; a rat went sliding across the floor and fetched up against the fore lockers before scuttling into the dark again, indignant.
The ship righted almost at once: there was no unusual wind, no heavy swell; at once he understood that Temeraire had taken flight. Laurence flung on his boat-cloak and rushed out in nightshirt and bare feet; the drummer was beating to quarters, the crisp flying staccato echoing off the wooden walls, and even as Laurence staggered out of his room the carpenter and his mates were rushing past him to clear away the bulkheads. Another crash came: bombs, he now recognized, and then Granby was suddenly at his side, a little less disordered since he had been sleeping in breeches. Laurence accepted his arm without hesitation and with his help managed to push through the crowd and get back up to the dragondeck through the confusion. Sailors were running with frantic haste to the pumps, flinging buckets out over the sides for water to slop onto the decks and wet down the sails. A bloom of orange-yellow was trying to grow on the edge of the furled mizzen topsail; one of the midshipmen, a spotty boy of thirteen Laurence had seen skylarking that morning, flung himself gallantly out onto the yard with his shirt in his hand, dripping, and smothered it out.
There was no other light, nothing to show what might be going on aloft, and too much shouting and noise to hear anything of the battle above at all: Temeraire might have been roaring at full voice for all they would have known of it. "We must get a flare up, at once," Laurence said, taking his boots from Roland; she had come running with them, and Morgan with his breeches.
"Calloway, go and fetch a box of flares, and the flash-powder," Granby called. "It must be a Fleur-de-Nuit; no other breed could see without at least moonlight. If only they would stop that noise," he added, squinting uselessly up.
The loud crack warned them; Laurence fell as Granby tried to pull him down to safety, but only a handful of splinters came flying; screams rose from below: the bomb had gone through a weak place in the wood and down into the galley. Hot steam came up through the vent, and the smell of salt pork, steeping already for the next day's dinner: tomorrow was Thursday, Laurence remembered, ship's routine so deeply ingrained that the one thought followed instantly on the other in his mind.
"We must get you below," Granby said, taking his arm again, calling, "Martin!"
Laurence gave him an astonished, appalled look; Granby did not even notice, and Martin, taking his left arm, seemed to think nothing more natural. "I am not leaving the deck," Laurence said sharply.
The gunner Calloway came panting with the box; in a moment, the whistle of the first