Night Watch tds-27

by Terry Pratchett

  The major hated the map. It was the map of a city. A city wasn't a place for cavalry, for heavens' sake! Of course there had been casualties among the men. Three of them had been deaths. Even a cavalry helmet is not a lot of use against a ballistic cobblestone. And a trooper had been pulled off his horse in Dolly Sisters and, bluntly, mobbed to death. And that was tragic and terrible and, unfortunately, inevitable, once fools had decided to use cavalry in a city with as many alleys as Ankh-Morpork.

  The major didn't think of his superiors as fools, of course, since it would follow that everyone who obeyed them was a fool. He used the term “unwise”, and felt worried when he used it.

  As for the rest of the casualties, three of them had been men knocked senseless by riding into hanging shop signs while pursuing…well, people, when it came down to it, because with the smoke and darkness who could tell who the real enemy was? The idiots had apparently assumed that anyone running away was the enemy. And they'd been the luckier idiots, because men who rode their horses into dark alleys which twisted this way and that and got narrower and narrower, and then realized that it had all gone quiet and their horse couldn't turn round, well, they were men who learned how fast a man could run in cavalry boots.

  He totted up the reports. Broken bones, bruises, one man suffering from “friendly stab” by a comrade's sabre…

  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 any more. 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 manoeuvre 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.”

  “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'lemen, 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?” said the major, standing up.

  The man seemed unimpressed.

  “Carcer. Sergeant Carcer,” he said.

  “A sergeant? In that case you can—”

  “From Cable Street,” Carcer added.

  Now the major hesitated. Both the soldiers knew about the Unmentionables, although if asked they probably wouldn't have been able to articulate exactly what it was that they knew. Unmentionables worked in secret, behind the scenes. They were a lot more than just watchmen. They reported directly to the Patrician; they had a lot of pull. You didn't mess with them. They were not people to cross. It didn't matter that this man was only a sergeant. He was an Unmentionable.

  And, what was worse, the major realized that the creature could see what he was thinking and was enjoying the view.

  “Yeah,” said Carcer. “That's right. And it's lucky for you that I'm here, soldier boy.”

  Soldier boy, thought the major. And there were men listening, who'd remember that. Soldier boy.

  “How so?” he said.

  “While you and your shiny soldiers have been prancing around chasing washerwomen,” said Carcer, pulling up the tent's only vacant chair and sitting down, “the real trouble's been happening down in Treacle Mine Road. You know it?”

  “What are you talking about? We haven't had any reports about any disturbances down there, man!”

  “Yeah, right. Don't you think that's strange?”

  The major hesitated. A vague memory bobbed at the back of his mind…and there was a grunt from the captain, who pushed a piece of paper across to him. He glanced at it, and recalled.

  “One of my captains was down there this afternoon and said everything was under control,” he said.

  “Really? Whose control?” said Carcer. He leaned back in his chair and put his boots on the desk.

  The major stared at them, but the boots showed no sign of embarrassment. “Remove your feet from my desk,” he said coldly.

  Carcer's eyes narrowed. “You an' whose army?” he said.

  “Mine, as a matter of fact…”

  The major looked into Carcer's eyes, and wished he hadn't. Mad. He'd seen eyes like that on the battlefield.

  Very slowly, with exaggerated care, Carcer swung his feet off the table. Then he pulled out a handkerchief made grimy with unguessable humours, huffed theatrically on the wood, and pol
ished it industriously.

  “I do beg your pardon so very much,” he said. “However, while you gentlemen have been keeping your desk nice and clean, a canker, as they say, haha, is eating at the very heart of the city. Has anyone told you that the Cable Street Watch House has been burned to the ground? With, we believe, the loss of the lives of poor Captain Swing and at least one of our…technical people.”

  “Swing, bigods,” said Captain Wrangle.

  “That is what I said. All the scum your lads have been driving out of Dolly Sisters and all the other nests, well, they've ended up down there.”

  The major looked at the report. “But our patrol said that everything seemed to be in hand, the Watch were very visible on the streets, and people were showing the flag and singing the national anthem,” he said.

  “There you are, then,” said Carcer. “Do you ever sing the national anthem in the street, major?”

  “Well, no—”

  “Who did his lordship send down there?” said Wrangle.

  Major Mountjoy-Standfast thumbed through his papers. His face fell. “Rust,” he said.

  “Oh dear. That's a blow.”

  “I daresay the man is dead,” said Carcer, and the major tried not to look slightly more cheerful. “The person in charge down there now calls himself Sergeant Keel. But he is a impostor. The real Keel is in the mortuary.”

  “How do you know all this?” said the major.

  “We in the Particulars have ways of finding things out,” said Carcer.

  “I've heard,” murmured the captain.

  “Martial law, gentlemen, means that the military comes to the aid of the civil power,” said Carcer. “And that's me, right now. O'course, you could send a couple of runners up to the ball, but I don't reckon that would be a good career move. So what I'm asking is for your men to assist us with a little…surgical strike.”

  The major stared at him. There was now no limit to the distaste he had for Carcer. But he hadn't been a major for very long, and when you've just been promoted you hope to stay that way long enough for the braid to get a tarnish.

  He forced himself to smile. “You and your men have had a long day, sergeant,” he said. “Why don't you go along to the mess tent while I consult with my fellow officers?”

  Carcer stood up with a suddenness that made the major flinch, then leaned forward with his knuckles on the desk.

  “You do that, sonny Jim,” he said, with a grin like the edge of a rusty saw. Then he turned and strode out into the night.

  In the silence that followed Wrangle said, “His name is on the list of officers that Swing sent us yesterday, I'm afraid. And, er, he's technically correct about the law.”

  “You mean we have to take orders from him?”

  “No. But he's entitled to request assistance from you.”

  “Am I entitled to refuse?”

  “Oh, yes. Of course. But…”

  “…I'd have to tell his lordship why?”

  “Exactly.”

  “But that man's an evil bastard! You know the sort. The kind that joins up for the pillaging? The kind you have to end up hanging as an example to the men?”

  “Um…”

  “What now?”

  “Well, he's right about one thing. I've been looking at the reports and, well, it's odd. It's all been very quiet down towards Treacle Mine Road.”

  “That's good, isn't it?”

  “It's unbelievable, Clive, when you put it all together. Even the Watch House didn't get attacked, it says here. Er…and your Captain Burns says he met this Keel chap, or someone who said he was Keel, and he says that if the man's a Watch sergeant then he, Burns, is a monkey's uncle. He says the man is used to serious command. I think he rather took to him, to tell you the truth.”

  “Ye gods, Tom, I need some help here!” said the major.

  “Then send out some gallopers right away. A little informal patrolling, perhaps. Get some proper intelligence. You can afford to wait half an hour.”

  “Right! Right! Good idea!” said the major, steaming with relief. “See to it, could you?”

  After the flurry of orders, he sat back and stared at the map. Some things at least made sense. All these barricades looked inward. People were barricading themselves against the palace and the centre of the city. No one would be bothered much about the outside world. If you had to take an outlying part of the city in those circumstances, then the thing to do would be to go in via a gatehouse in the city wall. They might not be quite so guarded as they ought to be.

  “Tom?”

  “Yes, Clive?”

  “Have you ever sung the national anthem?”

  “Oh, lots of times, sir.”

  “I don't mean officially.”

  “You mean just to show I'm patriotic? Good gods, no. That would be a rather odd thing to do,” said the captain.

  “And how about the flag?”

  “Well, obviously I salute it every day, sir.”

  “But you don't wave it, at all?” the major enquired.

  “I think I waved a paper one a few times when I was a little boy. Patrician's birthday or something. We stood in the streets as he rode by and we shouted ‘Hurrah!’”

  “Never since then?”

  “Well, no, Clive,” said the captain, looking embarrassed. “I'd be very worried if I saw a man singing the national anthem and waving the flag, sir. It's really a thing foreigners do.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “We don't need to show we're patriotic, sir. I mean, this is Ankh-Morpork. We don't have to make a big fuss about being the best, sir. We just know.”

  @It was a beguiling theory that might have arisen in the minds of Wiglet and Waddy and, yes, even in the not overly exercised mind of Fred Colon, and as far as Vimes could understand it, it went like this.

  1. Supposing the area behind the barricades was bigger than the area in front of the barricades, right?

  2. Like, sort of, it had more people in it and more of the city, if you follow me.

  3. Then, correct me if I'm wrong, sarge, but that'd mean in a manner of speaking we are now in front of the barricades, am I right?

  4. Then, as it were, it's not like we're rebellin', is it? 'cos there's more of us, so the majority can't rebel, it stands to reason.

  5. So that makes us the good guys. Obviously we've been the good guys all along, but now it'd be kind of official, right? Like, mathematical?

  6. So we thought we'd push on to Short Street and then we could nip down into Dimwell and up the other side of the river…

  7. Are we going to get into trouble for this, sarge?

  8. You're looking at me in a funny way, sarge.

  9. Sorry, sarge.

  Vimes, with an increasingly worried Fred Colon in front of him, and some of the other barricadeers standing around as if caught in an illicit game of Knocking On Doors And Running Away, thought about this. The men watched him carefully, in case of explosion.

  And it actually made a weird kind of logic, if you didn't factor in considerations like “real life” and “common sense”.

  They'd worked hard. It was easy enough to block a city street, heavens knew. You just nailed planks around a couple of wagons and piled it high with furniture and junk. That took care of the main streets, and with enough pushing you could move it forwards.

  As for the rest, it really hadn't been that hard. There had been lots of small barricades in any case. The lads had simply joined them up. Without anyone really noticing, The People's Republic of Treacle Mine Road now occupied almost a quarter of the city.

  Vimes took a few deep breaths.

  “Fred?” he said.

  “Yes, sarge?”

  “Did I tell you to do this?”

  “No, sarge.”

  “There's too many alleys. There's too many people, Fred.”

  Colon brightened. “Ah, well, there's more coppers too, sarge. A lot of the lads found their way here. Good lads, too. And Sergeant Dickins, he knows about th
is stuff, he remembers the last time this happened, sarge, so he asked every able-bodied man who knew how to use a weapon to muster up, sarge. There's a lot of 'em, sarge! We got an army, sarge!”

  This is how the world collapses, thought Vimes. I was just a young fool, I didn't see it like this. I thought Keel was leading the revolution. I wonder if that's what he thought, too?

  But I just wanted to keep a few streets safe. I just wanted to keep a handful of decent, silly people away from the dumb mobs and the mindless rebels and the idiot soldiery. I really, really hoped we could get away with it.

  Maybe the monks were right. Changing history is like damming a river. It'll find its way round.

  He saw Sam beaming among the men. Hero worship, he thought. That sort of thing can turn you blind.

  “Any trouble?” he said to Colon.

  “Don't think anyone's worked out what's happening here, sarge. There's been a lot happening around Dolly Sisters and over that way. Cavalry charges and what have you—hold on, here come some more.”

  A watchman had signalled from the top of the barricade. Vimes heard the commotion on the other side of the pile.

  “More people runnin' away from Dolly Sisters, by the look of it,” said Colon. “What d'you want us to do, sarge?”

  Keep them out, thought Vimes. We don't know who they are. We can't let everyone in. Some of them will be trouble.

  The trouble is, I know what's going on out there. The city is a little slice of Hell, and there's no real safety anywhere.

  And I know what I'm going to decide, because I watch me decide it.

  I don't believe this. I'm standing over there now, a kid who's still clean and pink and full of ideals, looking at me as if I'm some kind of hero. I don't dare not be. I'm going to make the stupid decision because I don't want to look bad in front of myself. Try explaining that to anyone who hasn't had a couple of drinks.