Jingo - Terry Pratchett [122]
But don’t unfurl it, Vimes thought. Don’t let them see it. It’s enough for them to know they’re marching under a flag.
Carrot brandished the spear.
“And I promise you this,” he shouted, “if we succeed, no one will remember. And if we fail, no one will forget!”
Probably one of the worst rallying cries, Vimes thought, since General Pidley’s famous “Let’s all get our throats cut, boys!” but it got a huge cheer. And once again he speculated that there was magic going on at some bone-deep level. People followed Carrot out of curiosity.
“All right, you’ve got an army, I suppose,” said Ahmed. “And now?”
“I’m a policeman. So are you. There’s going to be a crime. Saddle up, Ahmed.”
Ahmed salaamed. “I am happy to be led by a white officer, offendi.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Have you ever ridden a camel before, Sir Samuel?”
“No!”
“Ah?” Ahmed smiled faintly. “Then just give it a prod to get started. And when you want to stop, hit it very hard with the stick and shout ‘Huthuthut!’”
“You hit it with a stick to make it stop?”
“Is there any other way?” said 71-hour Ahmed.
His camel looked at Vimes, and then spat in his eye.
Prince Cadram and his generals surveyed the distant enemy, from horseback. The various Klatchian armies were drawn up in front of Gebra. Compared to them, the Ankh-Morpork regiments looked like a group of tourists who had missed their coach.
“Is that all?” he said.
“Yes, sire,” said General Ashal. “But, you see, they believe that fortune favors the brave.”
“That is a reason to field such a contemptible little army?”
“Ah, sire, but they believe that we will turn and run as soon as we taste some cold steel.”
The Prince looked back at the distant banners. “Why?”
“I couldn’t say, sire. It appears to be an item of faith.”
“Strange.” The Prince nodded to one of his bodyguards. “Fetch me some cold steel.”
After some hurried discussion a sword was handed up very gingerly, handle first. The prince peered at it, and then licked it with theatrical care. The watching soldiers laughed.
“No,” he said at last. “No, I have to say that I don’t feel the least apprehensive. Is this as cold as steel gets?”
“Lord Rust was probably being metaphorical, sire.”
“Ah. He is the sort who would be. Well, let us go forward and meet him. We must be civilized, after all.”
He urged his horse forward. The generals fell in behind him.
The Prince leaned down toward General Ashal again.
“And why are we going out to meet him before battle commences?”
“It’s a…it’s a goodwill gesture, sire. Warriors honoring one another.”
“But the man’s a complete incompetent!”
“Indeed, sire.”
“And we’re about to set thousands of our countrymen against one another, aren’t we?”
“Indeed, sire.”
“So what does the maniac want to do? Tell me there’s no hard feelings?”
“Broadly speaking, sire…yes. I understand the motto of his old school was ‘It matters not that you won or lost, but that you took part.’”
The Prince’s lips moved as he tried this out once or twice. Finally he said: “And, knowing this, people still take orders from him?”
“It would seem so, sire.”
Prince Cadram shook his head. We can learn from Ankh-Morpork, his father had said. Sometimes we can learn what not to do. And so he’d set out to learn.
First he’d learned that Ankh-Morpork had once ruled quite a slice of Klatch. He’d visited the ruins of one of its colonies. And so he’d found out the name of the man who had been audacious enough to do this, and had got agents in Ankh-Morpork to find out as much about him as possible.
General Tacticus, he’d been called. And Prince Cadram had read a lot and remembered everything, and “tactics” had been very, very useful in the widening of the empire. Of course, this had its own drawbacks. You had a border, and across the border came bandits. So you sent a force to quell the bandits, and in order to stamp them out you had to take over their country, and soon you had another restless little vassal state to rule. And now that had