Difference between revisions of "Dunne"

Latest revision as of 14:30, 9 November 2008

Character Profile[edit]

Biography[edit]

Dunne was one of Temeraire's riflemen. Laurence described him and Donnell, while they were still at the Loch Laggan covert, as "still" having some difficulty in finding the target but at least being quick in reloading.

Dunne was pleased when Temeraire and his crew moved to the Dover covert in the summer of 1805. He spoke a bit too freely with Collins about his intentions to enjoy the pleasures of Dover and was chastened by Laurence for it.

Dunne had long, thin hands, and his dexterity suffered due to the cold during the Battle of Dover.

Dunne was wounded during the Valerie engagement as he journeyed to China with Temeraire and his crew in late 1805.

He was one of the ten crew members chosen to accompany Temeraire and Laurence to Peking, along with Granby, Keynes, Riggs, Therrows, Hackley, Blythe, Martin, Willoughby and Digby. (Emily Roland and Peter Dyer also went, on George Staunton's advice. As they were children, they were not counted against the limit of ten set by Prince Yongxing.)

When the crew was buried in an avalanche in the Pamirs - inadvertently set off by Temeraire, when he used the Divine Wind to intimidate Arkady and his band of feral dragons - Dunne was one of the men who was dug up from underneath the snow "pale and still," along with Granby, Riggs and Hackley. Bathing in the hot springs in the ferals' cavern did them much good, but the riflemen were still not wholly recovered by the time the party reached Istanbul, being inclined to sneeze at inopportune moments. Dunne in particular could not stop coughing, and Laurence gave the rifleman his own water ration.

Dunne's tendency to get into trouble over women became evident again in Istanbul, a Muslim city where women were generally veiled if not secluded entirely. First he, Hackley and midwingman Portis had to be disciplined for acting over-excited over a veiled person, presumably a woman, they saw speaking with a palace official from a distance. Portis was assigned to dig Temeraire a fresh "necessary" and to fill it in again when Temeraire was done, while Dunne and Hackley were sent to assist the chief leatherworker, Mr. Bell.

Then Hasan Mustafa Pasha arranged an "entertainment" in an attempt to distract the British party from their demands for the dragon eggs they had come for. This entertainment included scantily clad dancing girls. Dunne and Hackley comported themselves shamelessly, whistling and trying to catch at the girls' veils, Dunne even getting up on one knee and reaching out a hand to the dancers before Riggs pulled him down by the ear.

The final straw came when Dunne and Hackley were caught trying to sneak into the seraglio where the palace women were secluded. The customary sentence for this was death. Laurence managed to get the officers' lives spared by suggesting that since there were no disinterested witnesses to swear that Dunne and Hackley had actually seen the women - which it later turned out that they had - they ought to be given the benefit of the doubt and "only" flogged. In return, however, he was forced to accept that he had to do the same and give the benefit of the doubt to the Turks' feeble explanations as to the deaths of the British ambassador and the disappearance of the gold sent to pay for the dragon eggs.

As a result of this mess, Dunne and Hackley were turned out of the flight crew and flogged by the armourer, Mr. Pratt, although Laurence scanted a bit on the count of the strokes, which was nearer to forty than the fifty the sentence called for. Salyer, who had been on guard when Dunne and Hackley snuck off and who had only lately been made midwingman, was reduced back to ensign and "started" (caned) with a freshly cut switch.

Both Dunne and Hackley - only recently completely recovered from the avalanche - were ill for some time after the flogging, Hackley more severely so as he was slighter in build. However, Dunne was well enough to somewhat redeem himself after the British were given proof by Sara Maden that the Turks had indeed received the British gold but had melted down the coins to disguise them. At this point, Laurence decided to steal the three eggs that the British were due and then escape to Austria on Temeraire. This plan was made more dangerous by the fact that the eggs were being kept in the palace baths (for the warmth) and none of the British knew exactly where the baths were.

Dunne admitted to Laurence that he and Hackley had indeed seen the palace women coming out of the baths, as their hair had been wet and the fairer-skinned women had been rather pink. His memory of the route was good enough that he was able to lead the raiding party back to the location.

After Temeraire and his crew returned to Britain in December 1806, accompanied by Arkady and 19 other feral dragons, Dunne and Wickley, one of the bellmen, were reassigned to Arkady, as both of them had picked up some of the Durzagh language spoken by the ferals and were old enough to be placed in positions of command.

Both Wickley and Dunne were present aboard Arkady in December 1806 or January 1807 when, during Napoleon's occupation of Britain, Iskierka and the ferals decided to head towards London for some private raiding while the rest of the British forces fled northwards. Iskierka was captured by the French, along with her captain, Granby, and all her crew, but the ferals and their officers escaped. As Laurence and Tharkay made their preparations to sneak into London to rescue Granby and Iskierka, Laurence noticed Dunne watching from a distance, "sidelong and hesitating, with occasional glances at the other officers." Since Laurence knew that Dunne was no coward, he assumed that on principle, Dunne was reluctant to serve with a convicted traitor.