“There were four that came aboard as owners of the cargo.” She began to tick them off on her fingers. “Mr. Harrison the loadmaster got one of them, but another one stabbed him, the devil. I know only one of them went down to the cowshed, and another one helped this simpering little bastard rig up the ropes so that if anybody was left to try any funny business we were hostage, and then that other man went up to the wheelhouse. I was told that we would be all right, provided my husband gets the cargo to Quirm.” The little girl clung to her dress as the woman continued, her face wooden. “Personally, I don’t believe it, but he hasn’t harmed my husband yet. He’s counting, all the time he’s counting. My husband is listening to Old Treachery and remembering! Trying to out-think sixty miles of murderous water! And if he dies, it wins, wherever you are … ”
“Feeney, keep your crossbow pointing at this gentleman, will you?” said Vimes. “And if he makes any movement whatsoever, up to and including trying to blow his nose, you have my full authority to shoot him somewhere where it will be seriously inconvenient.”
Vimes headed to the steps and nodded to Feeney and Mrs. Sillitoe, raised a finger and said, “Be with you in just one minute!” And hurried down into the hot and noisome heart of the Wonderful Fanny. Snooker, Vimes thought. Knocking the balls until you have the right one right on cue.
He felt pressure on his feet surge as the vessel lifted, and instantly jumped into the air, landing neatly as the Fanny slapped back down into the water.
He was confronted by a man who would surely make even Willikins think twice. “You’d be Ten Gallons? Mrs. Sillitoe sent me down here. I’m Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch!”
And the man with a face like a troll and a body to match said, “Heard about you. Thought you were dead!”
“I generally look like this at the end of boat trips, Mr. Gallons,” said Vimes. Then, pointing to an apparent corpse on the floor between them, “What happened to him?”
“I fink he is dead,” Ten Gallons leered. “I’ve never seen a man suffocated by his own nose before.”
It was hard to hear anything down in the cowshed given the complaining of the oxen and the ominous whirring of overstressed gears, but Vimes shouted, “Did he have a crossbow?”
Ten Gallons nodded and fingers thicker than Vimes’s wrist unhooked said weapon off a nail on the wall. “Would come with you, mister, but it’s all the three of us can do to hold things together down here!” He spat. “Ain’t really any hope anyway, the damn slam is right behind us! See you on the other side, copper!”
Vimes nodded at him, examined the crossbow for a moment, made a little adjustment and, satisfied, climbed up the steps.
Vimes looked at the few people left on the Wonderful Fanny who weren’t pouring water on the backs of steaming oxen or trying to hold the boat in one piece and above water. The shocks were indeed getting closer together, he was sure of it, and surely, once there was a big enough hole, the whole damn dam would give way.
All the occupants of the cabin except Brassbound, who fell over, jumped together as yet another surge raised the boat.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Feeney as Vimes went over to the trembling Brassbound, who had clearly realized that he was likely to be the unlucky winner of the first-over-the-side contest. And Feeney actually groaned when Vimes handed the man the recovered crossbow saying, “I told you, Chief Constable, I know a killer when I see one and I need back-up and I’m sure that our Mr. Brassbound is very eager to get himself promptly on to the good side of the law right now, a decision that might well make him look better in court. Am I not right, Mr. Brassbound?”
The young man nodded fervently.
Vimes added, “I’d rather have you down here, Feeney. Until I know exactly who is still on this tub, I’d like you to look after the ladies. Right now I’m not sure I know who’s alive and who’s dead.”
“The Fanny is not a tub, commander,” said Mrs. Sillitoe sharply, “but I’ll forgive you this one time.”
Vimes gave her a little salute as all but Brassbound jumped and once again the idiot floundered.
Vimes turned toward the stairs. “It’s going to be Stratford up there with the pilot, isn’t it, Mr. Brassbound?”
Another, bigger surge this time, and Brassbound landed heavily. He managed to get out, “And he’s heard about you, you know how it is, and he’s determined to get down to the sea before you catch up with him. He’s a killer, sir, a stone killer! Don’t give him a chance, sir, I beg you for all our sakes, and do it quickly for yours!” The air was electric, truly electric. Everything metal shook and jangled. “They say the dam is going to break pretty soon,” said Brassbound.
“Thank you for that, Mr. Brassbound. You sound like a sensible young man to me and I’ll say so to the authorities.”
The worried young man’s face was wreathed in smiles as he said, “And you’re the famous Commander Vimes, sir! I’m glad to be at your back.”
There were a lot of steps up to the wheelhouse. The pilot was king and rode high over the river, monarch of all he surveyed even if, as now, rain hammered at the expensive glass windows as if it found such solid slabs of sky offensive. Vimes stepped inside quickly. It was hardly worth shouting, given that the storm drowned out everything, but you had to be able to say that you’d said it: “Commander Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Watch! Statute of necessary action!” Which didn’t exist, but he swore to himself that he would damn well get it enacted as soon as he got back, even if he had to call in favors from all over the world. A lawman faced with a dreadful emergency should at least have some kind of figleaf to shove down the throats of the lawyers!
He could see the back of Mr. Sillitoe’s head with his pilot’s cap. The pilot paid Vimes no attention, but a young man was standing looking at Vimes in knock-kneed, pants-wetting horror. The sword he had been carrying landed heavily on the deck.
Brassbound was hopping from one foot to the other. “You’d better take care of him right now, commander, he’ll have a trick or two up his sleeve and no mistake!”
Vimes ignored this and carefully patted the young man down, freeing up one short knife, the sort a river rat might carry. He used it to cut a length of rope and tied the man’s hands together behind him. “Okay, Mr. Stratford, we’re going downstairs. Though if you’d like to dive into the water first I won’t stop you.”
And then the man spoke for the first time. “I ain’t Stratford, sir,” he said, pleading. “I’m Squeezy McIntyre. That’s Stratford behind you with the crossbow pointing at you, sir.”
The man formerly known as Brassbound gave a chuckle as Vimes turned. “Oh my, oh my, the great Commander Vimes! I’ll be damned if you ain’t as dumb as a pile of horseshit! You know the eyes of a killer when you see them, do you? Well, I reckon I’ve killed maybe sixteen people, not including goblins, of course, they don’t count.”
Stratford sighted on Vimes and grinned. “Maybe it’s my boyish features, would you say? What kind of bloody fool cares about the goblins, eh? Oh, they say they can talk, but you know how those little buggers can lie!” The tip of the crossbow drifted back and forward hypnotically in Stratford’s hands. “I’m curious, though. I mean, I don’t like you, and sure as salvation I’m going to shoot you, but do me a favor and tell me what you saw in my eyes, okay?”
Squeezy took the opportunity to hop desperately down the steps just as Vimes said, with a shrug, “I saw a goblin girl being murdered. What lies did she tell you? I know the eyes of a murderer, Mr. Stratford, oh I surely do, because I’ve looked into eyes like that many times. And if I need reminding, I look into my shaving mirror. Oh, yes, I recognize your eyes and I’m interested to see what you’re going to do next, Mr. Stratford. Though now I come to think about it, maybe it wasn’t sensible of me to give you that crossbow. Maybe I really am stupid, because I’m offering you the opportunity to surrender to me here
and now and I’m doing it only once.”
Stratford stared with his mouth open and then said, “Hell, commander, I’ve got the drop on you, and you want me to surrender to you? Sorry, commander, but I’ll see you again in hell!”
There was a space in the world for the crossbow to sing when the grinning Stratford pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, the sound that it made approximated to the word thunk. He stared at it.
“I took the safety pin out and stamped it into the dung,” said Vimes. “You can’t fire it without the pin! Now, I expect you have a couple of knives about your person, and so if you fancy cutting your way out past me, then I’d be happy to accommodate you, although I’ll tell you that firstly you won’t succeed, and secondly, if you manage to get past a boy who grew up on the streets of Ankh-Morpork there’s a man down there with a punch that can fell an elephant, and if you knife him you’ll just make him more annoyed—”
The surge this time was bigger than ever, and Vimes banged his head on the cabin’s roof before coming down again in front of Stratford and kicking him smartly in the official police officer method and also the groin.
“Oh, come on, Mr. Stratford, don’t you have a reputation to keep up? Feared killer? You should spend some time in the city, my lad, and I’ll make certain you do.” Stratford fell backward and Vimes continued, “And then you’ll hang, as is right and proper, but don’t worry—Mr. Trooper does a nifty noose and they say it hardly hurts at all. Tell you what, just to get the adrenaline pumping, Mr. Stratford, imagine I’m the goblin girl. She begged for her life, Mr. Stratford, remember that? I do! And so do you. You fell down at the first surge, Mr. Stratford. River rats know what to do. You didn’t, although I must say you’ve covered it very well. Whoops!”
This was because Stratford had indeed tried his hand with a knife. Vimes twisted his wrist and flung the blade down the stairs just as the glass in the wheelhouse smashed and a branch longer than Vimes plowed across the room, shedding leaves and dragging torrential rain and darkness behind it.
Both the lamps had gone out and, as it turned out, so had Stratford, hopefully through a shattered window, possibly to his death, but Vimes wasn’t sure. He would have preferred definitely. But there was no time to fret about him, because now came another surge, and water poured in through the glassless windows.
Vimes jerked open the little gate to the pilot’s deck and found Mr. Sillitoe struggling up out of the pile of storm-washed debris. He was moaning, “I’ve lost count, I’ve lost count!”
Vimes pulled him upward and helped him into his big chair, where he banged on the arms in frustration. “And now I can’t see a damned thing in all this murk! Can’t count, can’t see, can’t steer! Won’t survive!”
“I can see, Mr. Sillitoe,” said Vimes. “What do you want me to do?”
“You can?”
Vimes stared out at the homicidal river. “There’s a thundering great rock coming up on the left-hand side. Should it be doing that? Looks like there’s a busted landing stage there.”
“Ye gods! That’s Baker’s Knob! Here, let me at the wheel! How close is it now?”
“Maybe fifty yards?”
“And you can see it in all this? Damn me, mister, you must have been born in a cave! That means we ain’t that far from Quirm now, a touch under nineteen miles. You think you could stand lookout? Is my family okay? That little snot threatened to harm them if I didn’t keep the Fanny on schedule!” Something big and heavy bounced off the roof and spun away into the night, and the pilot went on, “Gastric Sillitoe, delighted to make your acquaintance, sir.” He stared ahead. “I’ve heard of you. Koom Valley, right? Happy to have you aboard.”
“Er, Gastric? Whole tree spinning in current near left-hand shore, ten yards ahead! Nothing much to see on right.”
The wheel spun frantically again. “Obliged to you, sir, and I surely hope you won’t take it amiss if I say that we generally talk about port and starboard?”
“Wouldn’t know about that, Gastric, never drank starboard. Mass of what looks like smashed logs ahead, forty yards, looks like small stuff, and I see a faint light high up on our right, can’t tell how far away.” Vimes ducked and a jagged log bounced off the back of the wheelhouse. Beside him the pilot sounded as if he had got a grip on things now.
“Okay, commander, that would be Jackson’s Light, very welcome sight! Now I’ve found my bearings and an hourglass that ain’t busted, I’d be further in your debt if you’d go below and tell Ten Gallons to cut loose the barges? There’s a chicken farmer on one of them! Best to get him on board before the dam breaks.”
“And hundreds of goblins, Gastric.”
“Pay them no mind, sir. Goblins is just goblins.”
For a moment Vimes stared into the darkness, and the darkness within the darkness, and it said to him, “You’re having fun, aren’t you, commander! This is Sam Vimes being Sam Vimes in the dark and the rain and the danger and because you’re a copper you’re not going to believe that Stratford is dead until you see the corpse. You know it. Some people take a devil of a lot of killing. You know you saw him go out of the cabin, but there’s all kinds of ropes and handholds on the boat, and the bugger was wiry and limber, and you know, just as day follows night, that he’ll be back. Double jeopardy, Commander Vimes, all the pieces on the board, goblins to save, a murderer to catch—and all the time, when you remember, there is a wife and a little boy waiting for you to come back.”
“I always remember!”
“Of course you do, Commander Vimes,” the voice continued, “of course you do. But I know you, and sometimes a shadow passes every sun. Nevertheless, the darkness will always be yours, my tenacious friend.”
And then reality either came back or went away and Vimes was saying, “We bring the goblins aboard, Gastric, because they … Yes, they are evidence in an important police investigation!”
There was a further surge, and this time Vimes landed up on the deck, which was a little bit softer now because of the ragged carpet of leaves and branches. As he got up Mr. Sillitoe said, “Police investigation, you say? Well, the Fanny has always been a friend of the law but, well, sir, they stink like the pits of hell, and that’s the truth of it! They’ll frighten the oxen something terrible!”
“Do you think they aren’t frightened already?” said Vimes. “Er, small logjam ahead on the right. All clear on the left.” Vimes sniffed. “Trust me, sir, by the smell of it they’re pretty nervous as it is. Can’t you just stop and tie us up to the bank?”
Sillitoe’s laugh was brittle. “Sir, there are no banks now, none that I’d try to get to. I know this river and it’s angry and there’s a damn slam coming. Can’t stop it any more than I could stop the storm. You signed up for the long haul, commander: either we race the river or we fold our hands, pray to the gods and die right now.” He saluted. “Nevertheless, I can see you’re a man, sir, who does what he sees needs doing, and, by hokey, I can’t argue with that! You’ve done a man’s job as it is, Commander Vimes, and may the gods go with you. May they go with all of us.”
Vimes ran down the steps and grabbed Feeney in passing as he danced over the heaving floor to the cowshed. “Come on, lad, it’s time to ditch the barges. There’s too much of a drag. Mr. Ten Gallons? Let’s get those doors open, shall we? Mr. Sillitoe has put me in charge down here. If you want to argue, feel free!”
The huge man didn’t even attempt an argument, and punched the doors open.
Vimes swore. Mr. Sillitoe had been right. There was roaring not far behind them and a river of lightning and blue fire was sweeping down the valley like a tide. For a moment he was hypnotized, and then got a grip. “Okay, Feeney, you start getting the goblins on board and I’ll fetch our chicken farmer! The bloody iron ore can sink for all I care.”
In the glaring light of the damn slam Vimes jumped twice to land on the barge from which was
already coming the squawking of terrified birds. Water poured off him as he dragged open the hatch and shouted, “Mr. False! No, don’t start grabbing the chickens! Better off farmer with no chickens than a load of chickens with no farmer! Anyway, they’ll probably float, or fly, or something!”
He coaxed the frightened man on to the next barge to find that it was still full of bewildered goblins. Feeney was looking out from the open door at the rear of the Fanny, and above the roar and hissing Vimes heard him shout, “It’s Mr. Ten Gallons, sir! He says no goblins!”
Vimes glanced behind them, and then turned back to Feeney. “Very well, Mr. Feeney, keep an eye on the goblins’ barge while I discuss matters with Mr. Ten Gallons, understand?”
He flung Mr. False on to the deck of the Fanny and looked around for Ten Gallons. He shook his head. What a copper that man would make if properly led by human beings. He sighed. “Mr. Ten Gallons? I told you, Mr. Sillitoe has given me carte blanche. Can we discuss the matter of the goblins?”
The giant growled, “I ain’t got no cart and I don’t know no Blanche, and I ain’t having no goblins on my deck, okay?”
Vimes nodded, poker-faced, and looked exhaustedly at the deck. “Is that your last word, Mr. Ten Gallons?”
“It damn well is!”
“Okay, this is mine.”
Ten Gallons went over backward like a tree and began to sleep like a log.
The street never leaves you …
And what the University of the Street told you was that fighting was a science, the science of getting the opponent out of your face and facedown on the ground with the maximum amount of speed and the minimum of effort. After that, of course, you had a range of delightful possibilities and the leisure in which to consider them. But if you wanted to fight fair, or at least more fair than most of the other street options, then you had to know how to punch, and what to punch and from precisely which angle to punch it. Of course, his treasured brass knuckles were an optional but helpful extra but, Vimes thought as he tried to wring some blood back into his fingers, probably any court, after sight of Ten Gallons, would have forgiven Vimes, even if he used a sledgehammer.
Discworld 39 - Snuff Page 32