Snuff

by Terry Pratchett

  “They have a pretty swift cutter, commander, for chasing smugglers!”

  “Good, and get me a cutlass. I’ve always wanted to try one.” Vimes thought for a moment and added, “And make that another two bacon sandwiches. And a lot more coffee. And make that one more bacon sandwich. And, Haddock, if you can scavenge a bottle of Merkel and Stingbat’s very famous old brown sauce, I swear I’ll make you a full sergeant when your term here is up, ’cos any man who can find a proper down-and-dirty Ankh-Morpork sauce in Quirm, home of five hundred bloody types of mayonnaise, without getting his eye full of spit deserves to be a sergeant in anybody’s force!”

  And then, as whatever had been holding Sam Vimes up drained away, he fell gently backward, dreaming of bacon sandwiches and brown sauce.

  Even Constable Haddock or, as he was now, Acting Captain Haddock, would agree that he was not the sharpest knife in the box, but it was amazing, the things you could open with a blunt instrument. As he hurried away on this prestigious errand he was stopped by one of the Quirm officers, who said, “Hareng!* Have you heard of a watchman called Petit Fou Artour?”

  “Wee Mad Arthur? Yes, he’s one of our lads!”

  “Well, you had better come quickly, my friend, because he is in our Watch House. Strong little fellow, isn’t he? A few of the other officers had laughed at him, he said, but I believe that they have learned the error of their ways—the hard way, as it happened. Apparently he has been sent to find Commandant Vimes.”

  Sam Vimes awoke from a pig’s nightmare to find himself lying on a pile of sacks in a godown in the docks. He was carefully lifted to his feet by Acting Constable Haddock and led unsteadily to a crude table behind which was a chef presiding over the sizzling makings of a bacon sandwich, or rather several bacon sandwiches. “He screamed a bit,” said Haddock, “when I insisted on no mayonnaise, but right now you can do no wrong here, commander. And I have one unopened bottle of Merkel and Stingbat’s finest, sir, the only one in the city. I’m afraid, however, that you’ll have to eat on the go, but the chef is packing the sandwiches in a hamper, with hot charcoal to keep them warm. No time to hang about, sir. The cutter will leave the dock in ten minutes.”

  A notebook was pushed under Vimes’s nose. “What’s this?”

  “Your signature to my promotion to full sergeant, commander,” said Haddock carefully. “I hope you don’t mind, but you did promise.”

  “Good man,” said Vimes. “Always write things down.”

  Haddock looked proud. “I’ve also arranged to have on board a selection of cutlasses for your perusal, commander.”

  Vimes struggled into his new shirt, and as his head appeared he said, “I want you to come too, Kipper. You know your way around here better than me. By the way, what did you do with the prisoner?”

  Haddock said, “What prisoner would that be, commander?”

  And for a moment Vimes’s blood froze. “You didn’t find a man tied up anywhere on the Fanny?”

  Now Haddock looked worried. “No, sir, no one by the time we got there. The place was a mess, sir. Sorry, sir, we didn’t know!”

  “No reason why you should’ve done. Sorry to shout, but if the Quirm police think the sun is shining out of my arse then tell them they should be looking for a youngish-looking individual known as Stratford. He’s a double murderer, at least…vicious and by now certainly armed. Tell them they’ll be doing everybody a favor if they keep guard on the boat, on the walking wounded and all the lads in your infirmary, and also they should send a clacks to Pseudopolis Yard right now to say that Commander Vimes requires that two members of the Watch should hasten via golem horse to Ramkin Hall to keep guard over Lady Sybil and Young Sam. I don’t want them to hang about: I know those things are bad news to ride, but Stratford is a nut job—they must hurry!”

  “Excuse me, commander,” said one of the Quirm officers, “we all speak pretty good Morporkian here. Everybody here speaks Morporkian. If you hear us speaking Quirmian it’s because we want to talk about you behind your back. We salute you, Commander Vimes, we will send your clacks and search everywhere for your murderer and take great care of the wounded. Now, please hurry down to the dock. The Queen of Quirm is pretty ancient, only one step away from being a hulk. Our cutter should catch up with it in a few hours. Shall we go?”

  Come on, sir,” said Haddock, “and Wee Mad Arthur will brief you on the way.”

  “Wee Mad Arthur!”

  “Yes, commander. Apparently he got sent to foreign parts to do with this goblin business, flew back to Ankh-Morpork and then got sent straight here to you. He’s got a story to tell you and no mistake.”

  “Where is he?” said Vimes.

  “They should be releasing him from custody right now, sir. A laughable misunderstanding, no real harm done, all will be forgiven and all will probably heal, I’m sure.”

  Vimes was wise enough to leave it at that.

  Of course, the seasickness didn’t help, but that didn’t begin to cut in until afterward, when Wee Mad Arthur had finished his breathless account. “And what did you find in the huts?” said Vimes.

  “More goblins, sir, all shapes and sizes, little ones too. Most of them dead, the rest in a very bad way, in my opinion. I did what I could for them, such as it was. To tell ye the truth, sir, I think they were bewildered about everything, the poor wee devils, but there’s grub and water there of a sort and I don’t reckon those guards are going to move in a hurry, ye ken.” He made a face and added, “Really weird, those goblins. I let them out and they just milled around, not knowing what the hell to do. I mean, crivens, if it were me I’d be out of there like a shot and give those scunners a right good kicking in the fork while they was lying down. As for the men, well, I kenned this was urgent and I could always fly back tomorrow and pour some water on them at least, but I thought the Watch should know and so made haste back to Ankh-Morpork and they told me where you’d gone on holiday, and Lady Sybil said you’d gone down that mucky old river, so all I had to do was fly down until I got to Quirm and when I found a big awful terrible mess I kenned that was something to do with you, commander.”

  Wee Mad Arthur hesitated. He was never quite sure what Vimes thought of him, given that the man considered Feegles in general a nuisance. When Vimes was slow to reply, he asked, “I hope I did what ye would have done, commander?”

  Vimes looked at Wee Mad Arthur as if he was seeing him for the first time. “No, constable, you did not do what I would have done, which is fortunate, because if you had, then you would be in front of me on a charge for using brutally excessive force in the execution of your duties. However, you will get a medal and an official commendation for this, constable. Right now we’re chasing another ship that’s taking more goblins to that wretched place. And although I imagine you must be very tired, I expect you’d like to come along for the ride? Incidentally, may I congratulate you personally, constable: for someone raised as a gnome you really have got the hang of the whole Feegle business, haven’t you? You beat up a dozen armed men single-handed?”

  “Oh aye, sir,” said Wee Mad Arthur slyly, “but it was nae fair, I had them outnumbered. Och, and by the way in some of them sheds there was all kinds of like alchemy stuff. Didn’t ken what it was, but ye might find it o’ interest.”

  “Well spotted,” said Vimes. “Why don’t you go down below and get a rest?”

  “Aye, I will sir, but as soon as I can I have to run an errand regarding Sergeant Colon, who is in a verra bad way indeed.” He looked at Vimes’s blank expression and continued. “Did ye nae know? He got some goblin geegaw given tae him and it’s put some kind of fluence on him quite cruel, and he’s a-screaming and a-shouting and making oot like a goblin all day long according to Sergeant Littlebottom. She’s moved him into the sanatorium.”

  “Sergeant Colon!”

  “Aye, sir. And according to Captain Angua we have to find a goblin cave to break the fluence, ye ken? Sounds a wee bitty weird to me, but half the Watch is oot searching the
place for goblins and they cannae find even one o’ the poor wee beings, being as the wee beasties is hardly going tae advertise these days, if you are getting my meaning.” Once again Wee Mad Arthur looked at Vimes.

  “Sergeant Colon!”

  “That’s what I told you, sir.”

  The blood came back to Vimes’s face as rational thought came back to his brain. “Can he travel?” Wee Mad Arthur shrugged. Ahead of them the Queen of Quirm seemed a little closer. “Then if you please, constable, can you go back to the clacks at the Quirm Watch House and tell them to put Fred on a coach to Ramkin Hall as soon as possible, okay?” Vimes added, “Best if Cheery comes with him, I should think.” And in his head he added, Fred Colon! He hates anything non-human, on the quiet. And for now he left it at that, given what lay ahead, but thought, Fred Colon! I wonder what kind of pots he would make.

  Behind him, Wee Mad Arthur whistled a strange note and a seagull trailing the cutter in the vague hope of a free meal of fish entrails found a weight on its back and a voice in its ear saying, “Hello, beastie, my name is Wee Mad Arthur.”

  Vimes liked to have his feet on something solid, such as his boots, and he liked his boots to do likewise. The sail of the Queen of Quirm now clearly visible, the cutter left the safety of the harbor and hit what is generally known as a moderate swell. And Commander Vimes, the Duke of Ankh-Morpork, Sir Samuel Vimes and, not least, Blackboard Monitor Vimes, was definitely going to eat his bacon sandwiches and not throw up in front of other watchmen.

  And he didn’t, and didn’t know how, although he did at one point think he detected, high in the rigging, the shape of a small goblin grinning down at him. He put it down to the bacon sandwiches, which were valiantly trying to come back up, just as he valiantly kept them down.

  Stratford would have got onto that damn hulk, he was sure of it. Damn sure of it. He would want paying, for one thing, and he wouldn’t want hanging. Vimes hesitated. How sure of it should Vimes be? How much was he prepared to gamble on a hunch? It was Stratford after all. He was smart and nasty, so you covered every angle, even though you knew that a smart man in a hurry could find a new angle for himself.

  And so all the people who made up Sam Vimes walked backward and forward across the poop deck, or the scuppers or the starboard or whatever the damn slippery rocking wood he was standing on was called, veering between hope, nausea, despair, self-doubt, nausea and the thrill of the chase and nausea, while the cutter seemed to hit the hard bits of every wave as it plunged onward after the Queen of Quirm and justice.

  The lieutenant came up to him and saluted, quite smartly, and said, “Commander, you have asked us to pursue the ship because it is carrying goblins, but I know of no law against taking goblins anywhere.”

  “There ought to be a law, because there certainly is a crime, do you understand?” said Vimes. He patted the lieutenant on the shoulder and continued, “Congratulations! This cutter of yours is actually traveling faster than the law. Lieutenant, the law will catch up. Goblins can speak, they have a society and I’ve heard one of them play music that would make a bronze statue burst into tears. The process of modern policing is such that I’m certain that these have been taken from their home, and the ship that we’re following is taking them somewhere where they don’t want to go. Look, if you’re queasy about it, just help me get on that ship and I’ll sort things out by myself, okay? And, besides, I believe our murderer could be on the boat as well. But, it’s up to you, lieutenant.”

  Vimes nodded toward the prow and added, “We’re so close I can see the faces of their crew. Maybe you should tell me your intentions, lieutenant?”

  Vimes felt a little sorry for the lad, but not too much. He had taken the job, he had accepted the promotion and the money that went with it, hadn’t he? Any copper worth his truncheon would at least take a look at the Queen now they’d come this far, wouldn’t they?

  “Very well, commander,” said the lieutenant. “I’m not sure of my bearings, but we will hail the Queen and ask permission to come aboard.”

  “No! You don’t ask! You tell them to stand by to be inspected by the police! And if you’re not concerned about the goblins, then it is a fact that I am in pursuit of a murderer,” Vimes added. “The capital crime—one that we can’t ignore!”

  In fact, he could see the Queen was already heaving two.* It was even hoisting a white flag, much to his surprise.

  And her captain was waiting for them as the cutter drew alongside. He had a look of resignation on his face, and said, “We won’t make any trouble, officers. I know it was a bloody stupid thing to do. We’ve got the man you’re looking for, and we’re bringing him up now. It’s not like we’re pirates, after all. Good morning, Lieutenant Perdix, sorry to put you to any trouble.”

  Vimes turned to the lieutenant. “You know the captain?”

  “Oh yes, commander, Captain Murderer is well respected on this coast,” said the lieutenant as the cutter gently kissed the Queen. “Smuggles, of course, they all do it. It’s a sort of game.”

  “But Captain…Murderer?” said Vimes.

  The lieutenant scrambled on to the Queen’s deck with ease and gave Vimes a hand up, saying, “The Murderers are a highly respected family in these parts. To tell you the truth, commander, I think they rather like the name. They’d object more to Smuggler, I suspect.”

  “We’re bringing the bloke up right now, lieutenant,” said the captain, “and he ain’t very happy.”

  Vimes looked him up and down and said, “I’m Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch, currently investigating at least two murders.”

  Captain Murderer’s eyes shut, and he put a hand over his mouth for a moment before saying, in a voice weeping with forlorn hope, “That wouldn’t be that Commander Vimes, would it?”

  “Captain…Murderer…produce for me the man I’m after, then I’m sure you’ll find me on a friendly footing. Do you get my meaning?”

  There was some shouting and thumping down below and several suggestions that somebody was getting kicked very hard. Eventually a man with a cloth tied round his face as a blindfold was half pushed and half dragged up onto the deck. “To tell you the truth, I’ll be glad to see the back of him,” said the captain, turning away.

  Vimes made sure the man was held fast by the sailors, and pulled down the mask. He looked into bloodshot eyes for a moment and then, very calmly, said, “Lieutenant, will you please impound the Queen of Quirm and arrest the captain and first mate on a charge of kidnapping and possibly abduction of a number of persons, specifically Mr. Jethro Jefferson, also goblins to the number of fifty or more. There may be other charges.

  “You can’t abduct goblins,” said Captain Murderer. “Goblins is cargo!”

  Vimes let this one pass for the moment. Captain Murderer would be orientated to the world as seen by Commander Vimes at Commander Vimes’s leisure. For now he said to the lieutenant, “I also suggest that you lock up the captain and first mate in the brig, if that is what it’s called, because when Mr. Jefferson here has got his hands free I think he’s going to try to punch somebody’s lights out. I’m sure this can all be sorted out, but someone’s going to suffer for this and it’s just a matter of deciding who it’s going to be.”

  He thought for a moment and then countermanded, “No, I think that first I’ll talk to the captain, in the captain’s quarters. Kipper, I’d like you to come and take notes. Lots of notes. Good to see you, Mr. Jefferson. Lieutenant, to the best of my knowledge Mr. Jefferson is guilty of no crime other than being in possession of a hot temper. But although he’s a man I’m very glad to find, he’s not the bastard I’m currently looking for.”

  It was, Acting Captain Haddock thought, a good thing that he had a decent amount of room in his notebook…

  “Captain Murderer, let me recap,” said Sam Vimes after a while, idly swiveling in the captain’s chair; it squeaked. “Some men unknown to you, but whom you decided to treat with respect because they had the right password, which is to
say the password you used in your dealings with smugglers, with whom you have developed what I might call an understanding, delivered to you a man, bound and gagged, and told you to take said man to Howondaland to, and I quote ‘cool his heels for a little while’; and you have also told me that these men said to you that this was okay by the law.”

  The swivel chair under Vimes squeaked once or twice as he twisted for dramatic effect, and he went on, “Captain Murderer, I represent the law in Ankh-Morpork, and you may be aware that a number of influential politicians throughout the world trust my judgment, and, Captain Murderer, I know of no law that makes kidnapping legal, but I’ll ask my colleague and an expert on Quirmian law whether he knows of any local edict that makes it legal to tie up somebody who has committed no crime and drag him onto a boat and send him to a questionable distant location against his will.”

  The swivel chair only had one chance to squeak again before Lieutenant Perdix said, ponderously, “Commander Vimes, I know of no such change in the law, and therefore, Captain Murderer, I arrest you,” and here the lieutenant placed a hand on the stricken captain’s shoulder, “on a charge of kidnapping, aiding and abetting kidnapping, actual and possibly grievous bodily harm, and other charges that may arise in the course of our continued investigations. In the meantime, upon its return to port, the Queen of Quirm is impounded and will, you may be sure, be inspected down to its gunwales.”

  Vimes swiveled the chair again until his face was not visible to the downcast captain but could be clearly seen by the lieutenant, then winked at him and got a little nod in response. He rotated the chair again and said, “Depriving an innocent man of his liberty even for a week, captain, is a very serious crime. However, the lieutenant has told me that you are well thought of on this coast and in general are considered to be a model citizen. Personally, I don’t like a world in which small men who act out of fear, or even out of a misguided deference, get thrown into prison while big men, the instigators if not the perpetrators of crime, get off totally free. I expect you don’t like that world either, eh?”