Jingo - Terry Pratchett [85]
The Boat creaked.
“Sarge,” said Nobby, as they looked out at the wonders of the deep.
“Yes, Nobby?”
“You know they say every tiny part of your body is replaced every seven years?”
“A well-known fact,” said Sergeant Colon.
“Right. So…I’ve got a tattoo on my arm, right? Had it done eight years ago. So…how come it’s still there?”
Giant seaweeds winnowed the gloom.
“Interesting point,” quavered Colon. “Er…”
“I mean, okay, new tiny bits of skin float in, but that means it ought to be all new and pink by now.”
A fish with a nose like a saw swam past.
In the middle of all his other fears, Sergeant Colon tried to think fast.
“What happens,” he said, “is that all the blue skin bits are replaced by other blue skin bits. Off’f other people’s tattoos.”
“So…I’ve got other people’s tattoos now?”
“Er…yes.”
“Amazing. ’cos it still looks like mine. ’s got the crossed daggers and ‘WUM.’”
“Wum?”
“It was gonna be ‘Mum’ but I passed out and Needle Ned didn’t notice I was upside down.”
“I should’ve thought he’d notice that…”
“He was pissed, too. C’mon, sarge, you know it’s not a proper tattoo unless no one can remember how it got there.”
Leonard and the Patrician were staring out at the submarine landscape.
“What’re they looking for?” said Colon.
“Leonard keeps talking about hieroglyphs,” said Nobby. “What’re they, sarge?”
Colon hesitated, but not for long. “A type of mollusc, corporal.”
“Cor, you know everything, sarge,” said Nobby admiringly. “That’s what hieroglyphs are, is it? So, if we go any deeper, they’ll be loweroglyphs?”
There was something slightly off-putting about Nobby’s grin. Sergeant Colon decided to go for broke.
“Don’t be daft, Nobby. ‘Loweroglyphs if you go lower…’ Oh, deary me.”
“Sorry, sarge.”
“Everyone knows you don’t get loweroglyphs in these waters.”
A couple of Curious Squid peered at them, curiously.
Jenkins’s ship was a floating wreck.
Several sails were in tatters. Rigging and other string that Vimes refused to learn the nautical names for covered the deck and trailed in the water.
Such sail as remained was moving them along in the brisk breeze.
Atop the mast the lookout cupped his hands around his mouth and leaned down.
“Land ahoy!”
“Even I can see that,” said Vimes. “Why does he have to shout?”
“It’s lucky,” said Jenkins. He squinted into the haze. “But your friend ain’t heading for Gebra. Wonder where he’s going?”
Vimes stared at the pale yellow mass on the horizon, and then up at Carrot.
“We’ll get her back, don’t worry,” he said.
“I wasn’t actually worrying, sir. Although I am very concerned,” said Carrot.
“Er…right…” Vimes waved his arms helplessly. “Er…everyone fit and well? The men in good heart, are they?”
“It would help morale no end if you were to say a few words, sir.”
The monstrous regiment of watchmen had lined up on the deck, blinking in the sunshine. Oh, dear. Round up the unusual suspects. One dwarf, one human who was brought up as a dwarf and thinks like a manual of etiquette, one zombie, one troll, me and, oh, no, one religious fanatic—
Constable Visit saluted. “Permission to speak, sir.”
“Go ahead,” mumbled Vimes.
“I’m pleased to tell you, sir, that our mission is clearly divinely approved of, sir. I refer to the rain of sardines which sustained us in our extremity, sir.”
“We were a little hungry, I wouldn’t say we were in extremi—”
“With respect, sir,” said Constable Visit firmly, “the pattern is firmly established, sir. Yes, indeed. The Sykoolites when being pursued in the wilderness by the forces of Offlerian Mitolites, sir, were sustained by a rain of celestial biscuits, sir. Chocolate ones, sir.”
“Perfectly normal phenomenon,” muttered Constable Shoe. “Probably swept up by the wind passing a baker’s shop—”
Visit glared at him,