Jingo - Terry Pratchett [121]
Vimes rolled his eyes. It worked…but how did it work?
He’d heard plenty of good speakers, and Captain Carrot was not among them. He hesitated, lost the thread, repeated himself and in general made a mess of the whole thing.
And yet…
And yet…
He watched the faces that were watching Carrot. There were the D’regs, and some of the Klatchians who had stayed behind, and Willikins and his reduced company. They were listening.
It was a kind of magic. He told people they were good chaps, and they knew they weren’t good chaps, but the way he told it made them believe it for a while. Here was someone who thought you were a noble and worthy person, and somehow it would be unthinkable to disappoint them. It was a mirror of a speech, reflecting back to you what you wanted to hear. And he meant it all.
Even so, men occasionally glanced up at Vimes and Ahmed and he could see them thinking, in their separate ways, “It must be all right if they’re in on it.” That, he was ashamed to realize, was one of the advantages of armies. People looked to other people for orders.
“This is a trick?” said Ahmed.
“No. He doesn’t know any tricks like that,” said Angua. “He really doesn’t. Uh-oh…”
There was a scuffle in the ranks.
Carrot strode forward and reached down, bringing up Private Bourke and a D’reg, each man held by the collar in one big fist.
“What’s going on, you two?”
“He called me the brother of a pig, sir.”
“Liar! You called me a greasy dishcloth-head!”
Carrot shook his head. “And you were both doing so well, too,” he said sadly. “There really is no call for this. Now I want you, Hashel, and you, Vincent, to shake hands, right? And apologize, yes? We’ve all had a rather trying time, but I know you’re both fine fellows underneath it all—”
Vimes heard Ahmed murmur. “Oh, well, now it’s all over…”
“—so if you’ll just shake hands we’ll say no more about it.”
Vimes glanced at 71-hour Ahmed. The man wearing a sort of waxen grin.
The two scufflers very gingerly touched hands, as if they were expecting a spark to leap the gap.
“And now you, Vincent, apologize to Mr. Hashel…”
There was a reluctant “’ry.”
“And we’re sorry for what?” Carrot prompted.
“…sorry for calling him a greasy dishcloth-head…”
“Well said. And you, Hashel, apologize to Private Bourke.”
The D’reg’s eyes scurried around their sockets, looking to find a way out that would allow their body to come too. Then he gave up.
“’ry…”
“For…?”
“’ry for calling him a brother of a pig…”
Carrot lowered both men.
“Good! I’m sure you’ll get along splendidly once you get to know each other—”
“I didn’t just see that, did I?” said Ahmed. “I didn’t just see him talk like a little schoolteacher to Hashel who, I happen to know, once hit a man so hard his nose ended up in one of his ears?”
“Yes, you did,” said Angua. “And now watch them.”
When the rest of the men turned their attention back to Carrot the scufflers looked at one another, as unfortunates who had both been through the same baptism of fiery embarrassment.
Private Bourke gingerly offered Hashel a cigarette.
“It only works around him,” said Angua. “But it does work.”
Let it go on working, Vimes prayed.
Carrot walked over to a kneeling camel and climbed into the saddle.
“That’s ‘Evil Brother-in-Law of a Jackal,’” said Ahmed. “Jabbar’s camel! It bites everyone who tries to ride it!”
“Yes, but this is Carrot.”
“It even bites Jabbar!”
“And you notice how he knew how to get on a camel?” said Vimes. “How he wears the robes? He’s fitting in. The boy was raised in a dwarf mine. It took him about a month to know my own damn city better than I do.”
The camel rose. Now the flag, Vimes thought, give him the flag. When you go to war, there’s got to be a flag.
On cue, Constable Shoe passed up the spear with the tightly rolled cloth around it. The constable looked proud. He’d stitched the thing in conditions of