Jingo - Terry Pratchett [59]
He rummaged in a pocket and produced a very small book, which he held up for inspection.
“This belonged to my great-grandad,” he said. “He was in the scrap we had against Pseudopolis and my great-gran gave him this book of prayers for soldiers, ’cos you need all the prayers you can get, believe you me, and he stuck it in the top pocket of his jerkin, ’cos he couldn’t afford armor, and next day in battle—whoosh, this arrow came out of nowhere, wham, straight into this book and it went all the way through to the last page before stopping, look. You can see the hole.”
“Pretty miraculous,” Carrot agreed.
“Yeah, it was, I s’pose,” said the sergeant. He looked ruefully at the battered volume. “Shame about the other seventeen arrows, really.”
The drumming died away. The remnant of the Watch tried to avoid one another’s gaze.
Then an imperious voice said, “Why aren’t you in uniform, young man?”
Nobby turned. He was being addressed by an elderly lady with a certain turkey-like cast of feature and a capital punishment expression.
“Me? Got one, missus,” said Nobby, pointing to his battered helmet.
“A proper uniform,” snapped the woman, handing him a white feather. “What will you be doing when the Klatchians are ravishing us in our beds?”
She glared at the rest of the guards and swept on. Angua saw several others like her passing along the crowds of spectators. Here and there was a flash of white.
“I’ll be thinking: those Klatchians are jolly brave,” said Carrot. “I’m afraid, Nobby, that the white feather is to shame you into joining up.”
“Oh, that’s all right, then,” said Nobby, a man for whom shame held no shame. “What am I supposed to do with it?”
“That reminds me…did I tell you what I said to Lord Rust?” said Sergeant Colon, nervously.
“Seventeen times so far,” said Angua, watching the women with the feathers. She added, apparently to herself, “‘Come back with your shield or on it.’”
“I wonder if I can get the lady to give me any more?” said Nobby.
“What was that?” said Carrot.
“These feathers,” said Nobby. “They look like real goose. I’ve got a use for a lot more of these—”
“I meant what was it that Angua said?” said Carrot.
“What? Oh…it’s just something women used to say when they sent their men off to war. Come back with your shield, or on it.”
“On your shield?” said Nobby. “You mean like…sledging, sort of thing?”
“Like dead,” said Angua. “It meant come back a winner or not at all.”
“Well, I always came back with my shield,” said Nobby. “No problem there.”
“Nobby,” sighed Colon, “you used to come back with your shield, everyone else’s shield, a sack of teeth and fifteen pairs of still-warm boots. On a cart.”
“We-ell, no point in going to war unless you’re on the winning side,” said Nobby, sticking the white feather in his helmet.
“Nobby, you was always on the winning side, the reason bein’, you used to lurk aroun’ the edges to see who was winning and then pull the right uniform off’f some poor dead sod. I used to hear where the generals kept an eye on what you were wearin’ so they’d know how the battle was going.”
“Lots of soldiers have served in lots of regiments,” said Nobby.
“Right, what you say is true. Only not usually during the same battle,” said Sergeant Colon.
They trooped back into the Watch House. Most of the shift had taken the day off. After all, who was in charge? What were they supposed to be doing today? The only ones left were those who never thought of themselves as off duty, and the new recruits who hadn’t had their keen edge blunted.
“I’m sure Mr. Vimes’ll think of something,” said Carrot. “Look, I’d better take the Goriffs back to their shop. Mr. Goriff says he’s going to pack up and leave. A lot of Klatchians are leaving. You can’t blame them, either.”
Dreams rising with him like bubbles, Vimes surfaced from the black fathoms of sleep.
Normally, these days, he treasured the moment of waking. It was when solutions presented themselves. He assumed bits of his brain came out at night and worked on the