Night Watch - Terry Pratchett [119]
“—take off, and tiny tiny little wooden teeth that you could—”
“Will you shut up!” said the major. “Have you no interest in honor? Glory? Love of city?”
“Dunno. Can you get much for ’em?” said Nobby.
“They are priceless!”
“Oh, well, in that case I’ll stick with the boots, if it’s all the same to you,” said Nobby. “You can sell them for ten pence a pair if you know the right shop—”
“Look at Trooper Gabitass there!” said the major, now quite upset. “Twenty years service, a fine figure of a soldier! He wouldn’t stoop to stealing the boots of a fallen enemy, would you, trooper?”
“No, sir! Mug’s game, sir!” said Trooper Gabitass.*
“Er…yes. Right!” said the major. “You could learn a lot from men like Trooper Gabitass, Master Nobbs. By the sound of it, your time with the rebels has filled your head with very wrong ideas indeed.”
“I ain’t a rebel!” Nobby shouted. “Don’t you go calling me a rebel, I ain’t a rebel, I’m an Ankh-Morpork lad, I am, and proud of it! Hah, you are wrong, I’ve never been a rebel and you’re cruel to say so! I’m an honest lad, I am!”
Big tears began to run down his cheeks, washing aside the grime to reveal the lower strata of grime beneath.
The major had no experience of this sort of thing. Every available orifice on the little lad’s face seemed to be gushing. He looked for help to Gabitass.
“You’re a married man, aren’t you, Trooper? What am we supposed to do now?”
“I could give him a clout alongside the ear, sir,” said Trooper Gabitass.
“That’s very unfeeling, Trooper! Look here, I had a handkerchief on me somewhere…”
“Huh, I have my own wiper, thank you very much, I don’t have to be condescended at,” sniffed Nobby and pulled one out of his pocket. In fact, he pulled several dozen, including one with the initials C and M-S on it. They were tangled together like a conjuror’s flags-of-all-nations, and dragged with them several purses and half a dozen spoons.
Nobby wiped his face with the first one, and thrust the entire collection back into his pocket. At this point, he realized that all the men were staring at him.
“What? What?” he said defiantly.
“Tell us about this man Keel,” said the major.
“I don’t know nuffin’,” said Nobby automatically.
“Aha, that means you do know something,” said the major, who was indeed the kind of person who liked this kind of little triumph.
Nobby looked blank. The captain leaned forward to whisper to his superior officer.
“Er, only under the rules of mathematics, sir,” he said. “Under the rules of common grammar, he is merely being emphat—”
“Tell us about Keel!” the major shouted.
“Tell you what, Major, why not leave that sort of thing to the experts?” said a voice.
The major looked up. Carcer and his men had entered the tent. The sergeant was grinning again.
“Got yourself a little prisoner, have you?” he said, stepping forward to examine Nobby. “Reckon you’ve got a ringleader here, yeah. Told you anything, has he? I shouldn’t think so. You need special training to get the best out of lads like this, haha.”
He slipped his hand into his pocket. When it came out, the knuckles were ringed with brass.
“Now then, lad,” he said, as the soldiers watched in horror. “You know who I am, do you? I’m in the Particulars, me. And I can see two of you. One of them’s a lively lad who’s going to help the proper authorities with their business, and the other is a lippy little bugger who’s going to try to be clever. One of these lads has a future and all his teeth. Now the funny thing about me, it’s a little habit of mine, is that I never ask a question twice. So…you’re not a criminal, are you?”
Nobby, his eyes huge and fixed on the brass knuckles, shook his head.
“You just do what you have to, to survive, right?”
Nobby nodded.
“In fact, you were probably a decent lad before you fell in with the rebels, I expect. Sang hymns and all that.”
Nobby nodded.
“This man who calls himself Sergeant Keel is the ringleader of the rebels, yes?”
There was a moment of hesitation, and then Nobby raised a hand.
“Um…everyone does what he tells them, is that the same