Jingo - Terry Pratchett [15]
“He’s a gnome!”
“Well done, sir.”
“Another one of yours?”
“Ours, sir,” said Carrot, using his reproachful voice again. “Yes, sir. Attached to the Chitterling Street Station since last week, sir.”
“Oh my gods…” murmured Vimes.
Buggy Swires saw his stare and saluted. He was five inches tall.
Vimes regathered his mental balance. The long and the short and the tall…waifs and strays, all of us.
“I’m not going to keep you long,” he said. “You all know me…well, most of you know me,” he added, with a sidelong glance at Carrot, “and I don’t make speeches. But I’m sure all of you have noticed the way this Leshp business has got people all stirred up. There’s a lot of loose talk about war. Well, war isn’t our business. War is soldiers’ business. Our business, I think, is to keep the peace. Let me show you this—”
He stood back and pulled something out of his pocket with a flourish. At least, that was the intention. There was a rip as something ceased to be entangled in the lining.
“Damn…ah…”
He produced a length of shiny black wood from the ragged pocket. There was a large silver knob on the end. The watchmen craned to look.
“This…er…this…” Vimes groped. “This old man turned up from the palace a couple of weeks ago. Gave me this damn thing. Got a label saying ‘Regalia of the Watch Commandr., Citie of Ankh-Morporke.’ You know they never throw anything away up at the palace.”
He waved it vaguely. The wood was surprisingly heavy.
“It’s got the coat of arms on the knob, look.” Thirty watchmen tried to see.
“And I thought…I thought, good grief, this is what I’m supposed to carry? And I thought about it, and then I thought, no, that’s right, just once someone got it right. It’s not even a weapon, it’s just a thing. It ain’t for using, it’s just for having. That’s what it’s all about. Same thing with uniforms. You see, a soldier’s uniform, it’s to turn him into part of a crowd of other parts all in the same uniform, but a copper’s uniform is there to—”
Vimes stopped. Perplexed expressions in front of him told him that he was building a house of cards with too few cards on the bottom.
He coughed.
“Anyway,” he went on, with a glare to indicate that everyone should forget the previous twenty seconds, “our job is to stop people fighting. There’s a lot happening on the street. You’ve probably heard that they’re starting up the regiments again. Well, people can recruit if they like. But we’re not going to have any mobs. There’s a nasty mood around. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but we’ve got to be there when it does.” He looked around the room. “Another thing. This new Klatchian envoy or whatever he’s called is arriving tomorrow. I don’t think the Assassins’ Guild has anything planned but tonight we’re going to check the route the wizards’ procession will be taking. A nice little job for the night shift. And tonight we’re all on the night shift.”
There was a groan from the Watch.
“As my old sergeant used to say, if you can’t take a joke you shouldn’t have joined,” said Vimes. “A nice gentle door-to-door inspection, shaking hands with doorknobs, giving the uniform a bit of an airing. Good old-fashioned policing. Any questions? Good. Thank you very much.”
There was a general rustling and relaxing among the squad as it dawned on them that they were free to go.
Carrot started to clap.
It wasn’t the clap used by middlings to encourage underlings to applaud overlings.* It had genuine enthusiasm behind it which was, somehow, worse. A couple of the more impressionable new constables picked it up and then, in the same way that little pebbles lead the avalanche, the sound of humanoids banging their hands together filled the room.
Vimes glowered.
“Very inspiring, sir!” said Carrot, as the clapping rose to a storm.
Rain poured on Ankh-Morpork. It filled the gutters and overflowed and was then flung away by the wind. It tasted of salt.
The gargoyles had crept out of their daytime shadows and were perched on every cornice and tower, ears and wings outstretched to sieve anything edible out of the water. It was amazing what