He halted; the conversation fell into an awkward silence; all eyes turned towards Laurence. Laurence had meant to ask how matters stood in the Peninsula. “You will excuse me, gentlemen; good night,” he said instead, and went away from the fireside; shortly their conversation resumed at a louder and a happier pitch behind his back.
He could not blame his fellow-aviators for preferring his absence; their situation was a complex and a precarious one, and they could not be glad for any reminder of the disordered state of his mind when he made so crucial a member of their company. He was uneasy himself; about too many things. He stood in the cool night air, looking out past the fires. They were sheltering this night in an open field, dotted with their handful of tents and the great lumps of the sleeping dragons. At the center of the camp stood the one enormous and—to his mind—absurd silk-draped pavilion erected for Temeraire: a cleverly contrived sheet of wooden shingles sewn together, which could be rolled for carrying; unfolded and stiffened with poles, and mounted on tall shafts, it formed a high roof from which enormous drapes of red silk hung billowing in the wind. It was wreathed also in thin wispy trailers of fog: Iskierka lay not far away, upwind of it, glaring at the elaborate structure and emitting envy and steam together.
Laurence’s own tent, a gaudy but more prosaic affair, stood directly beside. At the moment, though, Temeraire and Mei lay entwined within the pavilion still; Laurence could not immediately seek his bed without intruding. He turned aside instead, and went slowly through the avenues of their small encampment, until he saw Hammond’s tent on the lee side of a small rise, with Churki sleeping half-curled about it.
“A moment, please, I beg your pardon,” Hammond said, rummaging urgently in his packs, which had only just now been delivered him from their luggage; he did not enjoy flying, and had still less enjoyed the last strenuous stretch. “Ah, there.” He took out a sheaf of folded and mostly dry leaves, which he moistened with water and put into his mouth to chew. “I ought never have left them with the baggage; those porters took it away, and I have not had a leaf all day. Thank Heavens,” he said, lowering himself to sit upon one of the camp-stools. “Forgive me, Captain: what did you say?”
“That I cannot account for it, sir,” Laurence said, remaining himself standing. “The size of this force is nothing short of extraordinary. Lord Bayan ought have moved Heaven and earth to keep them from being assigned to my command. He ought have retracted his accusations, and protested, sooner than promoting this expedition in any way.
“I should not like to think he or this General Fela had any cause to believe such a thing,” Laurence added, “—that we should be offering aid to these rebels; much less any proof.”
“He can have none, none at all,” Hammond said, with a firm nod, “and indeed I scarcely know how we are supposed to have managed it: that we should have somehow supplied the wants of a gang of rebels from so distant a position.”
“By the sale of opium, as I understand it,” Laurence said, watching his face, “shipped to their shores, the profit of which is also meant to be our motive, as little as that ought to answer for any honest man. Mr. Hammond, do our factors in Guangzhou knowingly disregard the prohibition on the importation of this drug?”
He asked it abruptly, half-ashamed to ask; his suspicions, as inchoate and confused as his memories, troubled him. He did not wish to accuse, he did not think any accusation merited.
But, “Oh,” said Hammond, with an easy shrug, “no more than you might expect. There is scarcely any market here in China for most of our goods, and enormous markets for their goods in the West: the deficit was quite unmanageable, until opium was introduced. His Majesty’s Government was very alarmed by the quantity of specie flowing out at the time, very alarmed indeed; the drug quite reversed the situation.
“Naturally,” he said hastily, glancing at Laurence’s expression, “naturally, that does not mean—that is, I do not mean at all to say that we are promoting any evasion of the official regulations. Only, there is a certain ebb and flow, in these matters. A limit is established which is excessively severe—it drives prices higher—we make our best efforts to impress it upon the merchantmen—but Captain, you must know it is difficult to make men restrain themselves when they have risked their lives to go around the world, and they can double the profit of their journey by smuggling in a chest or two—”
“Thank you, I have heard enough,” Laurence said grimly. “I dare say it is difficult to make men restrain themselves, when you wink at them.”