“And it will be a long while going, too,” Chu said, unperturbed, “as long as we can’t come at them more than twenty at a time.” He waved towards the engagement: the niru had closed with the front ranks of the French dragons, and were skirmishing with them skillfully though as yet cautiously, all the dragons on both sides working out a sense of their unfamiliar enemies. There was indeed no room for any other Chinese dragons to attack. One of the niru was already falling back a little from the fighting to give the rest more room for maneuvering.
“But then surely we ought do something to open a wider front, on which we might attack,” Temeraire said. “We might—” He paused, and looked upon the field: perhaps they might go around to the west—but there were guns on the heights there covering the French rear, with a forest of sharpened stakes rising up around them. “Well, we ought to do something, anyway,” he finished a little lamely, even if he could not immediately see what that something might be.
“Certainly,” Chu said. “Go find that Russian general, and tell him we had better arrange supply for another two days.” And then he turned around and flew back towards the campsite, as though there were no fighting going on at all.
The rest of the morning was equally deflating. Even Laurence only said, “We could scarcely give Bonaparte a better gift than to accept the extraordinary losses which it would require on the part of the Chinese legions to seize and overwhelm those artillery positions as they stand: pray notice, if you will, that the French have secondary guns waiting against just such an attempt, and crews of pikemen in support.
“Time is our ally: they cannot hold against us indefinitely. They have sixty dragons here, you five times that number. Even if we allow the French dragons to be the equal of the Chinese, which we ought not, as the day progresses we can send fresh beasts against tired, and by slow tide wear them down; and all the while, the Russians will be executing their own assault upon the French ground positions.”
This was a very sensible and practical explanation and by no means satisfying. Temeraire without much enthusiasm agreed to Laurence’s suggestion that they should indeed go and assure additional supply, for the Chinese legions, largely in hopes that the Russians should protest and insist on some more useful course of action. But Kutuzov was sitting in his own low chair with no more hurry in his manner than Chu; he only nodded to Laurence’s request and said, “I think Colonel Ogevin has already put it in train. Vasya,” he added to one of his aides, “see that it is done.”
So Temeraire, with enthusiasm still more diminished, returned to the campsite, where Chu was now eating a large helping of porridge as placidly as—as a cow, Temeraire thought, meanly; he scornfully refused the bowl which Shen Lao offered him. He had not in the least regretted Iskierka’s absence, all this while, but in the moment he missed her quite acutely. He was certain she would not have tolerated merely sitting about, but would have insisted on their going to join in somehow or other.
He ventured quietly to Laurence that perhaps they might try a pass against the French artillery. “For I am quite sure,” he said, “that I would be able to break some of those earthworks, with the divine wind, and bowl over a great many of the gunners, so the Russians might be able to come at them.”
“Yes,” Chu said, having overheard and demanded to know what Temeraire was saying, “and you could also go and dig some ditches, for latrines; and I dare say if you wanted, you could try and cook our dinner, though it might not taste very well; and also you could go and dance for the troops, which at least would entertain them. None of that is your business: it is your business to stay here, and learn how a battle is managed properly, and then if a moment should arise where you may, through a decisive action, alter the course of the battle, you will be ready to act, and not worn out and too distracted to observe it.”
Temeraire flattened his ruff, but even Laurence did not disagree, saying gently, “My dear, you must see that in the present situation, where the enemy’s positions mean we cannot bring to bear even the better part of the forces which we have, it would be folly to risk you to no purpose. Recall that we are here not merely as soldiers, but as envoys; it would be as wrong for us to go foolhardy into battle now, when our destruction could cast into serious disarray all the cooperation between the Russian army and the legions we have asked to follow us here, as it would be in another situation for us to evade battle out of cowardice.”
So Temeraire had nothing to do but sigh, and put down his head, and wait, while the Jade Dragons darted back and forth, bringing Chu reports of endless tedium, and the sun crawled by overhead.