IT WAS said of Napoleon's foot soldiers that each of them carried a field marshall's baton in his bag. It's a notion that Nigel Dodds seems to have taken to heart. His first speech to conference as deputy leader showed openly that he will not be content to see out his days in public life as second in command.
His high-powered, take-no-prisoners performance was no warm-up act for the benefit of the party leader. It was all iron fist but without the velvet glove.
There was no soft cop to balance out the hard cop.
Between them the new-look DUP leadership scorned Sinn Féin with as much gusto as they dismissed the Ulster Unionists and the direct rulers who had been lily-livered in the face of republican demands.
Rather than looking to yesterday's march in Belfast by Royal Irish Regiment soldiers returning from Afghanistan with trepidation, Dodds called for the streets to be thronged by people "giving thanks to God for the safe return of this generation battling for liberty".
The US should take note of Sinn Féin protests against the troops serving in Afghanistan and Iraq and he suggested Washington "stood up for its friends and not those who hate America".
The Provisionals had been defeated, he said, but the political battle continues.
Sinn Féin would continue to attack the ramparts of Britishness in Northern Ireland, but the fresh-faced DUP leadership would always be there to take the battle back to them.
The party's purpose was simple - to unify unionism and defeat Sinn Féin. How the crowd loved it.
His great crescendo of a speech finished with a footballer's celebration, a clenched fist-pump and a messianic spread of the arms.
He will be a deputy no leader could ignore.
Not that Peter Robinson might want to. He too thumped home the lines that swept away any doubts that the post-Paisley DUP would be anything less than true to its founder's vocation.
Taunting Sinn Féin as the party prepared to protest in Belfast against returning British troops, he said there was at least one positive aspect to the actions of republicans - they "would see what a real army looks like".
For all the crowd-wowing lines the new party leader carefully included some thoughtful passages for the many, unionist and non-unionist alike, who were following his address live on the BBC.
As a breed, DUP politicians don't do Jesuitical lines, but there was much for Mr Robinson's opponents to ponder and even decode.
Just when the crowd thought it could not take much more certainty, righteousness and defiance, Ian Paisley jnr took the stage.
Suffering from a little loss -of voice but not a keen eye for the mood of the day, he announced the DUP was now "running Ulster the way it should be run".
It prompted one last, grateful and exhausted burst of applause.