He spoke preoccupied, from instinct; and then it was too late. Lieutenant Forthing was a competent officer and a sensible man; he had gone to New South Wales not, as had many of the other aviators sent with the mission, because he could get no other desirable post, but because as a foundling lacking all influence, he had little other chance of his own beast.
But this was little enough to put to his credit; and Ferris, meanwhile, had not by mere nepotism come by his original position with Temeraire. He had been made third lieutenant of a heavyweight stationed at the Channel as a boy of sixteen years, and since then had shown his worth across three continents and two oceans.
But that was not adequate excuse, Laurence knew. Forthing was not brilliant, but he was not short of courage or of sense, and he was first lieutenant; Laurence had made him so. That Laurence would rather have had Ferris in that place made no more excuse: officers not to his liking had been forced upon him before, and some of them the very dregs of the service, which Forthing was not; Laurence had never permitted his own disappointment to undercut the authority of one of his officers, and thus the chain on which all authority depended.
Never before: but now he had spoken; he had said, “Mr. Ferris,” and given the direction to him; and Ferris could not be blamed—Ferris had likely thought as little as Laurence himself, before answering, “Yes, sir,” and going at once to work which he did not need laid out for him: the sailors must be rousted from their beds of ease and set to clearing brush, the handful of surviving aviators—the only officers left among them—organized to supervise; small parties of the younger officers sent up into the interior to investigate what supply might be found.
All the work of command—work Ferris knew and had been formed for since his earliest years; work in which he would have been engaged but for a miscarriage of justice. But it was not his work, and Laurence ought not have given it to him. And no way now to easily recant—even more destructive if he had; as much as to say plainly that his first impulse was all for Ferris, and Forthing a poor second in his mind.
Instead Laurence said, “Mr. Forthing, you will oblige me greatly if you will go with Temeraire and look over our prison.”
“Very well, sir,” Forthing said, mingled relief and surprise in his looks superseding the first flash of dismay which Laurence’s first command had produced; he was off to Temeraire’s side at once, speaking loudly, “Temeraire, the captain wishes us to survey the island, if you please,” before Ferris had even begun his own tasks.
“Yes, I heard; but Laurence, will you not come?” Temeraire said, looking over with a rather puzzled expression.
It was indeed a task Laurence would have preferred to undertake himself—aviators had no experience of surveying coastlines, and Forthing could not be expected to recognize a natural harbor or pick out dangerous shoals, beyond the most obvious. But to send Forthing aloft with Temeraire, Laurence himself remaining behind, was the one mark of trust he could offer which, in the eyes of the aviators, would outrank having put Ferris in charge of arranging the camp.
And to be just, this intelligence was unlikely to be of use. Laurence could not envision any way in which they could proceed, with their crew of disappointed drunkards, to form any boat more sophisticated than a raft; to set them to a little spear-fishing would be the apex of his ambitions.
“You will do very well with Forthing, my dear,” Laurence said, “and I had best remain at camp at present; you may wish to delay if you see some chance of good fishing on the other side of the island, as well.”
Temeraire did not quite understand why Laurence should have remained behind, when Granby was here also; and if he should have to go without Laurence, he would rather have had Ferris or Roland. Temeraire had not forgotten Forthing’s behavior towards Laurence, when they had first been sent to New South Wales. Laurence might like to be generous; Temeraire was not so easily to be won over, and if he must grudgingly allow that Forthing had not been quite so useless as most of the aviators at the new colony, that did not mean Temeraire was enthusiastic to have him form one of his own crew.
Or, Temeraire thought, he might as easily have gone alone—more easily, in fact; he had to carry Forthing cupped in his talons, and it was not at all convenient to always be looking to make sure he had not dropped out; Temeraire was not aware of him in quite the same way as of Laurence.
“I suppose you may make notes,” Temeraire said to Forthing, rather doubtfully, as they made ready to go; “but no; you cannot; we haven’t any paper,” so he had even less notion what use Forthing would be.