“I can sketch the outline when we have returned,” Forthing said, a little doubtfully himself, but with an air of determination, “in wet sand.”
He did also make a fuss of what ought to have been a simple circuit of the island, which was not very large—he asked Temeraire to set him down more than once, only so he could collect bits of one plant or another which to Temeraire’s eye did not look any different from the ones on the original shore; and once in a sandy cove to collect up a truly enormous nest of turtle eggs. These he laboriously piled into his shirt one after another, wrapping each in leaves, while Temeraire had to sit three-quarters in the water being battened on by waves and mouthed at by the little sharks that lived in the cove; at least they were cleaning off the bits of seal meat which had clung to him.
“They are very good eating,” Forthing said by way of apology for the wait, as he packed up the eggs, perhaps aware that Temeraire was regarding him with ill-concealed disfavor. That had nothing to do with it, however: it was a great deal more to the point that Forthing’s coat had begun as a cheap and shabby garment, and was now both threadbare and faded from bottle-green to a drab greyish shade by sea-water and sun. His shirt, which it had formerly hidden from view, was worse—stained yellow at the neck and underarms with sweat and imperfect laundering, and the back mostly a mess of untidy darns done with thread of various colors.
He could certainly not have been considered a credit to any dragon at all, and Temeraire felt it keenly. One might excuse any number of temporary irregularities brought on by their trials, but Forthing might have had a better coat, or a decent shirt, to begin with; and he certainly might have trimmed his untidy hair or shaven his beard, which was inclined to grow in four or five different colors, off his very broad square jaw.
“We will want more of this sort of thing than we can get, I expect, before they come back,” Forthing added, to Temeraire’s censorious look.
“We are not going to just sit here and wait for the French to come back and take us off again,” Temeraire said with some heat.
“Well—I don’t see what else we can do,” Forthing said. “We haven’t any rope to tie ourselves on with, if you could even get anywhere from here flying.”
“I am sure Laurence will think of something,” Temeraire said; he had not himself, so far, but of course they had only just arrived. “This is just the sort of thing a Navy captain must deal with, you know, so Laurence is most fitted to work out precisely where we are, and what we shall do next; you see he knew at once what he wished us all to be doing.”
Forthing had the gall to look unconvinced. “I don’t see as being a Navy man will help him to get us off a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific a thousand miles from anywhere,” he said. “If he were Merlin, it might be some use.”
“Who is Merlin?” Temeraire asked, flaring his ruff. “I am sure he would not be any more use than Laurence, to anyone.”
“I was only having a joke,” Forthing said. “He’s a wizard, but not really; it is only stories. There was a fellow would tell them to us, at the foundling house, to keep us quiet,” he added. “About King Arthur, and all.”
“You may tell them to me, then, as we go,” Temeraire said, thinking Forthing might be a little useful after all: but Forthing looked awkward.
“Er, well, it is all early on,” he said. “So they weren’t very keen on dragons, at the time—” and it came out that this King Arthur and his knights had done nothing of real note but to kill innocent dragons all around Britain: almost certainly a pack of lies, as Forthing admitted they had not possessed even any guns at the time, and unpleasant lies at that.
“What are we going to do next, Laurence?” Temeraire asked, in a low voice, later that evening. Forthing had sketched out the lines of the island from memory, and not very badly; Temeraire had helped him. They thought the island was perhaps a mile wide at the extreme, mostly brush and scrub on the western side where the French had landed them, and a jungle-like growth over most of the eastern half; there were a great many little coves and inlets which they had not had time to investigate thoroughly.