The Fifth Elephant - Terry Pratchett [30]
“Yes. How do you manage to write, Gaspode?”
“I holds the chalk in me mouth. Easy.”
“You’re a smart dog. I’ve always said so. The world’s only talking dog, too.”
“Lower your voice, lower your voice!” said Gaspode, looking around. “Here, Uberwald’s wolf country, isn’t it?”
“Oh yes.”
“I could’ve bin a wolf, you know. With diff’rent parents, of course.”
Gaspode sniffed, and looked furtively up and down the street again.
“Steak?”
“Every night.”
“Right.”
Sergeant Colon was a picture of misery, drawn on a lumpy pavement in bad crayon on a wet day. He sat on a chair and occasionally glanced at the message which had just been delivered, as if hoping that the words would somehow fade away.
“Bloody hell, Nobby,” he moaned.
“There, there, Fred…” said Nobby, currently a vision in organdy.
“I can’t be promoted! I’m not an officer! I am base, common and popular!”
“I’ve always said that about you, Fred. You got common off to a treat.”
“But it’s writ down, Nobby! Look, His Lordship’s signed it!”
“We-ell, the way I see it, you’ve got three choices,” said Nobby.
“Yeah?”
“You can go and tell him you’re not doing it…”
The panic in Colon’s face was replaced by glazed gray terror.
“Thank you very much, Nobby,” he said bitterly. “Let me know if you’ve got any more suggestions like that, ’cos I’ll need to go and change my underwear.”
“Or you could accept it and make such a screw-up of it that he takes it away from you…”
“You’re doing this on purpose, Nobby!”
“Might be worth a try, Fred.”
“Yeah, but the thing about screw-ups, Nobby, is that it’s hard for you to be, you know, precise. You might think you’re making a little screw-up and then it blows up in your face and it turns out to be in fact a big screw-up, and in those circumstances, Nobby, I’m sort of worried that what His Lordship might take away from me wouldn’t just be the job. I hope I don’t have to draw you a picture?”
“Good point, Fred.”
“What I’m saying is, screw-ups is like…well, screw-ups is…well, the thing about screw-ups is you never know what size they’re going to be.”
“Well, Fred, the third choice is you putting up with it.”
“That’s not helpful, Nobby.”
“It’ll only be for a couple of weeks, then Mister Vimes’ll be back.”
“Yeah, but supposing he isn’t? Nasty place, Uberwald. I heard where it’s a misery wrapped in an enema. That doesn’t sound too good. You can fall down things. Then I’m stuck, right? I don’t know how to do officering.”
“No one knows how to do officering, Fred. That’s why they’re officers. If they knew anything, they’d be sergeants.”
Now Colon’s face screwed up again in desperate thought. As a lifelong uniformed man, a three-striped peg that had found a three-striped hole very early in its career, he subscribed automatically and unthinkingly to the belief that officers as a class could not put their own trousers on without a map. He conscientiously excluded Vimes and Carrot from the list, automatically elevating them to the rank of honorary sergeant.
Nobby was watching him with an expression of combined concern, friendliness and predatory intent.
“What shall I do, Nobby?”
“Well, ‘Captain,’” said Nobby, and then he gave a little cough, “what officers mainly have to do, as you know, is sign things—”
The door was knocked on and opened at the same time, by a flustered constable.
“Sarge, Constable Shoe says he really does need an officer down at Sonky’s factory.”
“What, the rubber wally man?” said Colon. “Right. An officer. Right. We’ll be along.”
“And that’s Captain Colon,” said Nobby quickly.
“Er…er…yes, and that’s Captain Colon, thank you very much,” said Colon, adding as his resolve stiffened, “and I’ll thank you not to forget it!”
The constable stared at them, and then stopped trying to understand.
“And there’s a troll downstairs who insists on speaking to whoever’s in charge—”
“Can’t Stronginthearm deal with it?”
“Er…is Sergeant Stronginthearm still a sergeant?” said the constable.
“Yes!”
“Even unconscious?”
“What?”
“He’s flat on the floor right now, Sa—Captain.”
“What’s the troll want?”