Night Watch - Terry Pratchett [111]
He looked across the makeshift table at Captain Tom Wrangle of Lord Selachii’s Light Infantry, who glanced up from his own paperwork and gave him a weak smile. They’d been at school together, and Wrangle, the major knew, was a lot brighter than him.
“What’s it look like to you, Tom?” said the major.
“We’ve lost nearly eighty men,” said the captain.
“What? That’s terrible!”
“Oh, about sixty of them are deserters, as far as I can see. You tend to get that in this sort of mess. Some have probably just popped home to see dear ol’ mum.”
“Oh, deserters. We’ve had some of those, too. In the cavalry! What would you call a man who leaves his horse behind?”
“An infantryman? As for the rest, well, as far as I can see only six or seven of them went down to definite enemy action. Three men got stabbed in alleyways, for example.”
“Sounds like enemy action to me.”
“Yes, Clive. But you were born in Quirm.”
“Only because my mother was visiting her aunt and the coach was late!” said the major, going red. “If you cut me in half, you’d find Ankh-Morpork written on my heart!”
“Really? Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Tom. “Anyway, getting murdered in alleyways is just part of life in the big city.”
“But they were armed men! Swords, helmets—”
“Valuable loot, Clive.”
“But I thought the City Watch took care of the gangs—”
Tom looked at his friend over the top of his paperwork.
“Are you suggesting that we ask for police protection? Anyway, there isn’t any, not anymore. Some of the watchmen are with us, for what good they are, and the rest either got beaten up or ran away—”
“More deserters?”
“Frankly, Clive, everyone’s drifting away so fast that by tomorrow we’ll be feeling pretty lonely.”
The men paused as a corporal brought in some more messages. They thumbed through them gloomily.
“Well, it’s gone quiet, anyway,” said the major.
“Suppertime,” said the captain.
The major threw up his hands. “This isn’t war! A man throws a rock, walks around the corner, and he’s an upstanding citizen again! There’s no rules!”
The captain nodded. Their training hadn’t covered this sort of thing. They’d studied maps of campaigns, with broad sweeping plains and the occasional patch of high ground that had to be taken. Cities were to be laid siege to, or defended. They weren’t for fighting in. You couldn’t see, you couldn’t group, you couldn’t maneuver and you were always going to be up against people who knew the place like their own kitchen. And you definitely didn’t want to fight an enemy that had no uniform.
“Where’s your lordship?” said the captain.
“Gone to the ball, the same as yours.”
“And what were your orders, may I ask?”
“He told me to do whatever I considered necessary to carry out our original objectives.”
“Did he write that down?”
“No,” said the major.
“Pity. Neither did mine.”
They looked at one another. And then Wrangle said, “Well…there’s no actual unrest at the moment. As such. My father said all this happened in his time. He said it’s best just to keep the lid on it. There’s only a limited number of cobblestones, he said.”
“It’s almost ten,” said the major. “People will be going to bed soon, surely?”
Their joint expression radiated the fervent hope that it had all calmed down. No one in their right mind wanted to be in a position where he was expected to do what he thought best.
“Well, Clive, provided there’s no—” the captain began.
There was a commotion outside the tent, and then a man stepped inside. He was bloodstained and smoke-blackened, his face lined with pink where sweat had trickled through the dreadful grime. A crossbow was slung across his back, and he’d acquired a bandolier of knives.
And he was mad. The major recognized the look. The eyes were too bright, the grin too fixed.
“Ah, right,” he said and removed a large brass knuckle-duster from his right hand. “Sorry about your sentry, gen’elmen, but he didn’t want to let me in even though I gave him the password. Are you in charge?”
“Who the hell are you?