Admiral Roland rubbed her cheek with her knuckles and then she said, ‘Well, since we can't spare the strength to keep them from the camp, we had better keep the camp from them.’

It was a little while before they could begin to put the plan in motion. Admiral Roland had some arguing to do first, but at last the fires were being put out, all across the camp, and the men were taking down their tents, whilst grumbling against the cold.

‘This is boring,’ Iskierka said to Temeraire, dissatisfied, as they sat waiting as a large square of forest just beside the camp was marked out for them by middle-weights. ‘It is not at all as good as fighting, and I do not want to sleep.’

‘Well, you must sleep, or else you cannot fight tomorrow,’ Temeraire said, although privately he felt rather much the same. ‘Now hurry, we do not have a good deal of time; the sun is already going down, and they will be sure to realize something is wrong, if it gets dark and they can see everything is ablaze.’

‘Yesterday you did not want me setting trees on fire,’ she said still grumbling, but then leapt aloft and strafed across the marked square with her flame, until the trees began to catch. The middle-weights had pulled up a good broad line of trees all around, and then clawed up the ground, to create a fire-break. It made a fine blaze, pleasantly warm—

‘Temeraire,’ Laurence said, gently touching his neck, and Temeraire jerked his head up; it had been very comfortable to doze.

‘I am awake. Is it our turn yet?’ He leapt aloft, and studied the still-blazing trees critically. He could not just cry away at them, for if they fell athwart the fire-break, they would ignite the rest of the trees, so he flew in a careful perimeter about them, and roared into the square. The fire-weakened trees crashed and fell in the most satisfying way, sparks flying up in great glowing orange clouds like small fireworks.

‘Well, I suppose it is a little easier to knock them down after they have been burnt someways,’ he admitted to Laurence, ‘not that I could not have managed it alone.’

‘You must also reserve your strength,’ Laurence said. ‘Another pass, and that will do it, I think; a few trees left standing will do no harm. The signal, Mr. Allen,’ Laurence added, and when Temeraire had given the field another circle, the middleweights came in, dropping their loads of mud scooped up easily from the riverbed of the Thames using wagon as shovels, onto the remaining flames.