“Mercy is a great virtue,” Mustafa said finally, “and indeed it would be sorrowful to mar relations between our countries by unhappy and false accusations. I am sure,” he added, looking at Laurence significantly, “that you would grant an equal presentiment of innocence in any reverse case.”
Laurence pressed his lips together. “You may rely upon it,” he said, through his teeth, well aware he had committed himself to at least tolerate the inadequacies of the Turkish explanations so long as he had no proof of the reverse. But there was very little choice; he would not see two young officers under his care put to death for kissing their hands to a handful of girls through a window, dearly as he would have liked to wring their necks.
Mustafa’s mouth turned up at the corner, and he inclined his head. “I believe we understand one another, Captain; we will leave their correction to you, then, and I trust you will ensure no similar incident occurs: gentleness shown once is mercy, shown twice is folly.”
He collected the guards and led them away into the grounds, not without some low and angry protest on their part; there were some sighs of relief as they at last reluctantly went out of sight, and a couple of the other riflemen went so far as to clap Dunne and Hackley on the back: behavior which had at once to be stopped. “That will be enough,” Laurence said dangerously. “Mr. Granby, you will note for the log that Mr. Dunne and Mr. Hackley are turned out of the flight crew, and you will put their names in the ground-crew roll.”
Laurence had no very good idea whether an aviator might so be turned before the mast, as it were; but his expression did not allow of argument, and he did not receive any, only Granby’s quiet, “Yes, sir.” A harsh sentence, and it would look ugly upon their records even after they had been restored to their positions, as Laurence meant to do once they had learned a lesson. But he had little other choice, if they were to be punished; he could call no court-martial here, so far from home, and they were too old to be started with a cane. “Mr. Pratt, take these men in irons; Mr. Fellowes, I trust our supply of leather will allow you to prepare a lash.”
“Aye, sir,” Fellowes said, clearing his throat uncomfortably.
“But Laurence, Laurence,” Temeraire said into complete silence, the only one who would have dared intercede. “Mustafa and those guards have gone, you need not flog Dunne and Hackley now—”
“They deserted their posts and willfully risked all the success of our enterprise, all for the satisfaction of the most base and carnal impulses,” Laurence said flatly. “No; do not speak further in their defense, Temeraire: any court-martial would hang them for it, and high spirits make no excuse; they knew better.”
He saw with some grim approval the young men flinching, and nodded shortly. “Who was on guard when they left?” he asked, surveying the rest of the crew.
Eyes dropped all around; then young Salyer stepped forward and said, “I was, sir,” in a trembling voice, which cracked mid-word.
“Did you see them go?” Laurence asked quietly.
“Yes, sir,” Salyer whispered.
“Sir,” Dunne said hurriedly, “sir, we told him to keep quiet, that it was only for a lark—”
“That will be quite enough, Mr. Dunne,” Granby said.
Salyer himself did not make excuses; and he was indeed a boy, only lately made midwingman, though tall and gangly with his adolescent growth. “Mr. Salyer, as you cannot be trusted to keep watch, you are reduced to ensign,” Laurence said. “Go and cut a switch from one of those trees, and go to my quarters.” Salyer stumbled away hiding his face, which beneath his hand was blotchy red.
To Dunne and Hackley, Laurence turned and said, “Fifty lashes each; and you may call yourselves damned lucky. Mr. Granby, we will assemble in the garden for punishment at the stroke of eleven; see to it the bell is rung.”
He went to his kiosque, and when Salyer came gave him ten strokes; it was a paltry count, but the boy had foolishly cut the switch from springy green wood, far more painful and more like to cut the skin, and the boy would be humiliated if he was driven to weeping. “That will do; see you do not forget this,” Laurence said, and sent him away, before the trembling gasps had broken into tears.
Then he drew out his best clothes; he still had no better coat than the Chinese garment, but he set Emily to polish his boots fresh, and Dyer to press his neckcloth, while he went out and shaved himself over the small hand-basin. He put on his dress-sword and his best hat, then went out again and found the rest of the crew assembling in their Sunday clothing, and makeshift frames of bare signal-flag shafts thrust deep into the ground. Temeraire hovered anxiously, shifting his weight from side to side, and plowing up the earth.
“I am sorry to ask it of you, Mr. Pratt, but it must be done,” Laurence said to the armorer quietly, and Pratt with his big head hung low between his shoulders nodded once. “I will keep the count myself, do you not count aloud.”
“Yes, sir,” Pratt said.
The sun crept a little higher. All the crew were already assembled and waiting and had been ten minutes and more; but Laurence neither spoke nor moved until Granby cleared his throat and said, “Mr. Digby, ring the bell for eleven, if you please,” with great formality; and the eleven strokes tolled away, if softly.
Stripped to the waist and in their oldest breeches, Dunne and Hackley were led up to the poles; they at least did not disgrace themselves, but silently put their shaking hands up to be tied. Pratt was standing unhappily, ten paces back, running the long strap of the whip through his hands, folding it upon itself every few inches. It looked like an old scrap of harness, hopefully softened by use and much of the thickness worn away; better at any rate than new leather.
“Very well,” Laurence said; a terrible silence fell, broken only by the crack of the descending lash, the gasps and cries growing slowly fainter, the count going on and on with their bodies slackening in the frames, hanging heavy from their wrists and dripping thin trickles of blood. Temeraire keened unhappily and put his head under his wing.
“I make that fifty, Mr. Pratt,” Laurence said; nearer to forty if even so far, but he doubted any of his men had been counting very closely, and he was sick to his heart of the business. He had rarely ordered floggings of more than a dozen strokes, even as a naval captain, and the practice was entirely less common among aviators. For all the gravity of the offense, Dunne and Hackley were still very young; and he blamed himself in no small part that they should have come to run so wild.
Still it had to be done; they had known better, much better, and been reined in scarcely days before; so flagrant a breach, left unchecked, would have wholly ruined them. Granby had not been so far off, in Macao, to worry about the effect of their long travels on the young officers; the long idleness of their sea-journey followed by their more recent excess of adventure was no substitute for the steady pressure of ordinary day-to-day discipline, in a covert; it was not enough for a soldier to be brave. Laurence was not sorry to see a strong impression from the punishment on the faces of the other officers, particularly the young men, that at least this small good might come of the unhappy incident.
Dunne and Hackley were cut down, and carried not unkindly back up to the larger kiosque, and laid in a screened-off corner upon a pair of cots which Keynes had prepared; they lay on their faces still gasping softly in half-consciousness, while he with a tight mouth sopped away the blood from their backs, and gave them each a quarter-glass of laudanum to drink.
“How do they do?” Laurence asked the dragon-surgeon, later in the evening; they had fallen quiet after the drug, and lain still.