least one more eagle, before we make him run away again."
"If we take him," Jane said, and reached to scratch Temeraire's harness, against such tempting of fate, "I hope we will get more than his eagles; we will get him. Yes, he is here, himself," she added, when Laurence could not help himself but ask. "He is beyond the curve with his Old Guard, and his pet Celestial; a splendid creature, what I have been able to see of her."
"I knew she should be hiding from the battle," Temeraire said, darkly.
"Keeping them in reserve and her, too," Jane said, "but that will not be enough. We have our own reserve: Iskierka will be waking up any moment now, and the others who were out to-night."
"She fought last night?" Laurence said.
"Yes," Jane said. "One can't get her off the field once she is on it, not until the enemy has quitted; so I had Granby rouse her up when it began to get a little light, and chase off the last of the Fleurs. Then she was tired enough to sleep a while. She will wake up full of vim, and just what we need. Bonaparte has let Prussia go to his head, I suppose, and thought he could beat us with less than all his strength."
"I have just been thinking," Temeraire said, after a moment, "where do you suppose his Grand Chevaliers are? - and Marshal Davout; I have not seen his standards anywhere, on the field."
"Returned to France, I imagine, or still on the coast ferrying," Laurence said. "And Davout - "
"Portugal, last report," Jane said.
"Well," Temeraire said, "there were two of them west of here; we stole their pigs, but they had plenty of food besides that. And Davout is not in Portugal at all, we saw him north of London, two days ago."
"What?" Jane said, and did not wait for an answer; she was running to Excidium at once, shouting orders, and leaping for the harness and her speaking-trumpet; Excidium going up even while her ensigns latched her on. "Alarm!" Laurence heard her shouting, "sound alarm, enemy to the north," and flags were going out on every dragon as their crews caught the signal from Excidium's back.
Temeraire sat up. "Whatever is she so worried for?" he said, looking at Laurence rather indignantly, but Laurence had a dreadful, sinking sensation. "Aloft," he said, "come; we must go aloft as far as you can - " and when Temeraire had climbed high enough to make trees and hills and farmhouses all blur into the wide gentle curve of the earth, he paused, hovering, and in subdued voice said, "Yes; I see them."
Davout was coming, directly for their rear, with thirty dragons and twenty thousand men.
Chapter 9
IN ANOTHER HOUR, there would have been nothing to do but stand and be pounded to pieces from either side; the little early warning was enough to try and disengage, at least, and Dalrymple at once issued the order for the retreat. Wellesley fought a brilliant rear-guard action, bloody and terrible, stretching his men to hold the full breadth of Napoleon's line while the rest of them withdrew behind that shield.
But still the retreat became rout by the end: ten thousand men left floundering in the marsh to be taken prisoner, and the rest straggling ignominiously away north through the countryside, without more than their muskets and their boots, and sometimes lacking those. The dragons were carrying the guns, dispiritedly, and occasionally Temeraire would look back over his shoulder at the battlefield they had fled and the dragons in the distance, chasing, with a quivering ruff. He did not propose to turn, but looked away again and put his head down, dogged, and kept flying.
Bonaparte's harrying pursuit fell off at last, near evening: the French dragons, having labored all day in battle or in carrying Davout's men near, had reached their limits, and one by one began to sink further behind into the gloaming; until they must have been called off and could be seen turning away.
Laurence put his hand on Temeraire's neck. "We have slipped the trap," he said quietly. "You have bought us that, at least."
"I still think we ought to go back," Iskierka said, grumbling, flying beside them; she had been very angry to awaken only to be told she would not have any fighting after all, and Temeraire only had managed to half-persuade, half-bully her into flying along with the rest. "I am hungry, and I do not like