‘We shan't manage like this,’ Jane said, Excidium having landed after a warning hiss cleared him a place. ‘Only dragons over the rank of lieutenant may stay: the rest of you must go on with the rest of the army and get the news from your officers or your captains. We have had to give them all ranks, thanks to your Temeraire's splendid scheme,’ she added dryly to Laurence. ‘The rest of them turned sulky and wanted epaulets of their own. Frivolous creatures.’ She patted Excidium, who looked rather smug with two epaulets of deep fire-orange, to match the edges of his massive wings.

They had scarcely made a little order, and crammed themselves into the barn, before Wellesley began. His aides put up a map of Chatham roads, and the mouth of the Thames where it spilled into the Channel, with all the small towns and villages thereabout. Their positions were marked, and a low murmur went about: their backs would be to the sea.

‘Well, gentlemen, I see you like our position less than I hope our friend Bonaparte will do,’ Wellesley said. ‘The Navy and the Corps have all but cut off his connection to the Continent, and the countryside has risen. He loses now a hundred men a day, and each week two dragons, for lack of supply. He can ill afford to refuse us a pitched battle if we offer it to him on what I trust he will think reasonable terms.’

The terms seemed indeed reasonable, from the French perspective. Laurence wondered if Wellesley meant to stiffen the backs of the soldiers by denying them any avenue of retreat save through the French troops before them.

‘Colonels Featherstone and Bree, you will take the centre. Your position is the most essential: you must hold, until you are signalled,’ Wellesley said. ‘Yield before the moment is ripe and he will split our forces, and destroy us at his leisure. You are not to advance, under any circumstances. You are only to form square and hold. Colonel Rethlow, you will back them with the artillery.

‘The cavalry will take position on either flank, with the rest of our infantry positioned here, and here,’ he indicated, 'and the Corps will hold off any French attempt to charge our centre from aloft. All our design, gentlemen, as I hope you gather,’ he went on, 'is to hold fast while they spend the best part of their strength, and divert their attacks from our centre until the signal is given.