`` good god , '' laurence said , comprehensively ; he could well and vividly imagine the reaction which the lords of the admiralty should have , to the intelligence that the well-formed orderly militia which they confidently expected , with a clever young officer at its head , was rather an experimental and wholly independent legion of unharnessed dragons , without great sympathy for their lordships , and under the particular command of the most recalcitrant dragon in all britain .