Night Watch tds-27

by Terry Pratchett

  “All right, let them through,” he said. “But no weapons. Pass the word around.”

  “Take weapons off people?” said Colon.

  “Think about it, Fred. We don't want Unmentionables in here, do we, or soldiers in disguise? A man's got to be vouched for before he can carry arms. I ain't going to be stabbed in the back and the front at the same time. Oh, and Fred…I don't know if I can do this, and probably it won't last, but as far as I'm concerned you're promoted to sergeant. Anyone who wants to argue about the extra stripe, tell 'em to argue with me.”

  Fred Colon's chest, already running to fat, swelled visibly.

  “Right, sarge. Er…does that mean I still take orders from you? Right. Right. Right. I still take orders from you. Right.”

  “Don't move any more barricades. Fill up the alleys. Hold this line. Vimes, you come with me, I'll need a runner.”

  “I'm pretty runny, sarge,” Nobby volunteered, from somewhere behind him.

  “Then what I want you to do, Nobby, is get out there and find out what's happening now.”

  Sergeant Dickins turned out to be younger than Vimes remembered. But he was still close to retirement. He'd maintained a flourishing sergeant's moustache, waxed to points and clearly dyed, and the proper sergeant shape, occasioned by means of undisclosed corsetry. He'd spent a lot of time in the regiments, Vimes recalled, although he came from Llamedos originally. The men found that out because he belonged to some druid religion so strict that they didn't even use standing stones. And they were strongly against swearing, which is a real handicap in a sergeant. Or would be, if sergeants weren't so good at improvising.

  He was currently in Welcome Soap, a continuation of Cable Street. And he had the army.

  It wasn't much of one. No two weapons were exactly alike and most of them were not, strictly speaking, weapons. Vimes shuddered when he saw the crowd and had a flashback, which was probably a flash forward, to all the domestic disputes he'd attended over the years. You knew where you were with strictly-speaking weapons when they came at you. It was the not-strictly-speaking ones that scared the cacky out of a new recruit. It was the meat cleavers tied to poles. It was the long spikes, and the meathooks.

  This was, after all, the area of small traders, porters, butchers and longshoremen. And so standing in raggedy lines in front of Vimes were men who, every day, peacefully and legally, handled things with blades and spikes that made a mere sword look like a girl's hatpin.

  There were classic weapons, too. Men had come back from wars with their sword or their halberd. Weapons? Gods bless you, sir, no! Them's mementoes. And the sword had probably been used to poke the fire, and the halberd had done duty as a support for one end of the washing line, and their original use had been forgotten…

  …until now.

  Vimes stared at the metalwork. All this lot would have to do to win a battle would be to stand still. If the enemy charged them hard enough, he'd come out the other side as mince.

  “Some of 'em are retired watchmen, sah,” Dickins whispered. “A lot of them have been in the regiments at one time or another, see. There's a few kids wanting to see some action, you know how it is. What d'you think?”

  “I'd certainly hate to fight them,” said Vimes. At least a quarter of the men had white hair, and more than a few were using their weapons as a means of support. “Come to that, I'd hate to be responsible for giving them an order. If I said ‘about turn!’ to this lot, it'd be raining limbs.”

  “They're resolute, sah.”

  “Fair enough. But I don't want a war.”

  “Oh, it won't come to that, sah,” said Dickins. “I've seen a few barricades in my time. It generally ends peaceful. The new man takes over, people get bored, everyone goes home, see.”

  “But Winder is a nutter,” said Vimes.

  “Tell me one that wasn't, sah,” said Dickins.

  Sir, thought Vimes. Or “sah”, at least. And he's older than me. Oh well, I might as well be good at it.

  “Sergeant,” he said, “I want you to pick twenty of the best, men that have seen action. Men you can trust. And I want them down at the Shambling Gate, and alert.”

  Dickins looked puzzled. “But that's barred, sah. And it's right down behind us, it is. I thought maybe—”

  “Down at the gate, sergeant,” Vimes insisted. “They're to watch for anyone sneaking up to unbar it. And I want the guard on the bridges to be strengthened. Put down caltrops on the bridge, string wires…I want anyone who tries to come at us over the bridge to have a really bad time, understand?”

  “Do you know something, sah?” said Dickins, with his head on one side.

  “Let's just say I'm thinking like the enemy, shall we?” said Vimes. He took a step closer and lowered his voice. “You know some history, Dai. No one with an ounce of sense goes up against a barricade. You find the weakness.”

  “There's other gates down there, sah,” said Dickins doubtfully.

  “Yes, but if they take Shambling they get into Elm Street and have a nice long gallop, right into where we're not expecting them,” said Vimes.

  “But…you are expecting them, sah.”

  Vimes just gave him a blank look, which sergeants are quite good at deciphering.

  “As good as done, sah!” said Dickins happily.

  “But I want a decent presence at all the barricades,” said Vimes. “And a couple of patrols that can go wherever there's trouble. Sergeant, you know how to do it.”

  “Right, sah.” Dickins saluted smartly, and grinned.

  He turned to the assembled citizenry. “All right, you shower!” he yelled. “Some of you has been in a regiment, I know it! How many of you knows ‘All The Little Angels’?”

  A few of the more serious class of mementoes rose in the air.

  “Very good! Already we has a choir! Now, this is a soldiers' song, see? You don't look like soldiers but by the gods I'll see you sounds like 'em! You'll pick it up as we goes along! Right turn! March! ‘All the little angels rise up, rise up, All the little angels rise up high!’ Sing it, you sons of mothers!”

  The marchers picked up the response from those who knew it.

  “How do they rise up, rise up, rise up, how do they rise up, rise up high? They rise heads up, heads up, heads up—” sang out Dickins, as they turned the corner.

  Vimes listened as the refrain died away.

  “That's a nice song,” said young Sam, and Vimes remembered that he was hearing it for the first time.

  “It's an old soldiers' song,” he said.

  “Really, sarge? But it's about angels.”

  Yes, thought Vimes, and it's amazing what bits those angels cause to rise up as the song progresses. It's a real soldiers' song: sentimental, with dirty bits.

  “As I recall, they used to sing it after battles,” he said. “I've seen old men cry when they sing it,” he added.

  “Why? It sounds cheerful.”

  They were remembering who they were not singing it with, thought Vimes. You'll learn. I know you will.

  After a while, the patrols came back. Major Mountjoy-Standfast was bright enough not to ask for written reports. They took too long and weren't very well spelled. One by one, the men told the story. Sometimes Captain Wrangle, who was plotting things on the map, would whistle under his breath.

  “It's huge, sir. It really is! Nearly a quarter of the city's behind barricades down there!”

  The major rubbed his forehead and turned to Trooper Gabitass, the last man in and the one who seemed to have taken pains to get the most information.

  “They're all on a sort of line, sir. So I rode up to the one in Heroes Street, with me helmet off and looking off-duty, sort of thing, and I asked what it was all about. A man shouted down that everything was all right, thank you very much, and they'd finished all the barricades for now. I said what about law and order, and they said we've got plenty, thank you.”

  “No one fired at you?”

  “No, sir. Wish I could say the same abo
ut round here. People were throwing stones at me and an old lady emptied a pissp—a utensil all over me from her window. Er…there's something else, sir. Er…”

  “Out with it, man.”

  “I, er, think I recognized a few people. Up on the barricades. Er…they were some of ours, sir…”

  Vimes shut his eyes, in the hope that the world would be a better place. But when he opened them, it was still full of the pink face of only-just Sergeant Colon.

  “Fred,” he said, “I wonder if you fully understand the basic idea here? The soldiers—that's the other people, Fred—they stay on the outside of the barricade. If they are on the inside, Fred, we don't, in any real sense, have a bloody barricade. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir. But—”

  “You want to do a spell in a regiment, Fred, and one of the things I think you'll find they're very hot on indeed is knowing who's on your side and who is not, Fred.”

  “But, sir, they are—”

  “I mean, how long have I known you, Fred?”

  “Two or three days, sir.”

  “Er…right. Yeah. Of course. Seems longer. So why, Fred, do I arrive here and find you've let in what seems like a platoon? You haven't been thinking metaphysically again, have you?”

  “It started with Billy Wiglet's brother, sir,” said Colon nervously. “A few of his mates came with him. All local lads. And there's a lad Nancyball grew up with and a bloke who's the son of Waddy's next-door neighbour who he used to go out drinking with, and then there's—”

  “How many, Fred?” said Vimes wearily.

  “Sixty, sir. Might be a few more by now.”

  “And it doesn't occur to you that they might be part of some clever plan?”

  “No, sarge, it never did. 'cos I can't see Wally Wiglet being part of a clever plan, sarge, on account of him not being much of a thinker, sir. They only allowed him to be in the regiment after he got someone to paint L and R on his boots. See, we know 'em all sarge. Most of the lads join up for a bit, just to get out of the city and maybe show Johnny Foreigner who's boss. They never expected to have old grannies spitting on them in their own city, sarge. That can get a lad down, that sort of thing. And getting cobblestones chucked at them too, of course.”

  Vimes gave in. It was all true. “All right,” he said. “But if this goes on, everyone is going to be inside the barricade, Fred.”

  And there could be worse ways of ending it, he thought.

  People had lit fires in the streets. Some cooking pots had been brought out. But most of the people were engaging in Ankh-Morpork's traditional pastime, which was hanging around to see what'd happen next.

  “What's going to happen next, sarge?” said Sam.

  “I think they'll attack in two places,” said Vimes. “The cavalry will go right outside the city and try to come in through the Shambling Gate because that'll look easy. And the soldiers and…the rest of the Watch who aren't on our side will probably creep across Misbegot Bridge under cover.”

  “Are you sure, sir?”

  “Positive,” said Vimes. After all, it had already happened…or something…

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn't quite remember when he'd slept last. Slept, not dozed or been unconscious. He knew his thinking was a little fuzzy around the edges. But he did know how the Treacle Mine Road barricade had been broken. It had been only one sentence in the history book, but he remembered it. Sieges that weren't broken via treachery were breached via some small door around the back. It was a fact of history.

  “But it won't be for an hour or two,” he said aloud. “We're not important enough. It's all been quiet down here. It's when they start to wonder why that the midden will hit the windmill.”

  “Lots of people are getting through, sarge. Some of the men said they could hear screaming in the distance. People are just piling in. There's robberies and everything going on out there…”

  “Lance-constable?”

  “Yes, sarge?”

  “You know when you wanted to swing a club at that torturing bastard and I stopped you?”

  “Yes, sarge?”

  “That's why, lad. Once we break down, it all breaks down.”

  “Yes, sarge, but you do bop people over the head.”

  “Interesting point, lance-constable. Logical and well made, too, in a clear tone of voice bordering on the bloody cheeky. But there's a big difference.”

  “And what's that, sarge?”

  “You'll find out,” said Vimes. And privately thought: the answer is, It's Me Doing It. I'll grant that it is not a good answer, because people like Carcer use it too, but that's what it boils down to. Of course, it's also to stop me knifing them and, let's be frank, them knifing me. That's quite important, too.

  Their walk had brought them to a big fire in the centre of the street. A cauldron was bubbling on it, and people were queuing up, holding bowls.

  “Smells good,” he said, to the figure gently stirring the cauldron's contents with a ladle. “Oh, it's you, er, Mr Dibbler…”

  “It's called Victory Stew, sergeant,” said Dibbler. “Tuppence a bowl or I'll cut my throat, eh?”

  “Close enough,” said Vimes, and looked at the strange (and, what was worse, occasionally hauntingly familiar) lumps seething in the scum. “What's in it?”

  “It's stew,” explained Dibbler. “Strong enough to put hairs on your chest.”

  “Yes, I can see that some of those bits of meat have got bristles on them already,” said Vimes.

  “Right! That's how good it is!”

  “It looks…very nice,” said Sam weakly.

  “You'll have to excuse the lance-constable, Mr Dibbler,” said Vimes. “The poor lad was brought up not to eat stew that winks at him.”

  He sat down with his bowl and his back against the wall and looked up at the barricade. People had been busy. In truth, there wasn't much else to do. The one here, from side to side of Heroes Street, was fourteen feet high and even had a crude walkway. It looked businesslike.

  He leaned back and shut his eyes.

  There was a hesitant slurping sound beside him as young Sam tried the stew, and then: “Is it going to come down to fighting, sarge?”

  “Yes,” said Vimes, without opening his eyes.

  “Like, really fighting?”

  “Yep.”

  “But won't there be some talking first?”

  “Nope,” said Vimes, trying to make himself comfortable. “Maybe some talking afterwards.”

  “Seems the wrong way round!”

  “Yes, lad, but it's a tried and tested method.”

  There was no further comment. Slowly, with the sounds of the street in his ears, Vimes slid into sleep.

  Major Mountjoy-Standfast knew what would happen if he sent a message to the palace. “What do I do now, sir?” was not something his lordship wanted to hear. It was not the sort of question a major was supposed to ask, given that the original orders had been very clear. Barricades were to be torn down, rebels were to be repelled. Grasp the nettle firmly and all that. He had, as a child, grasped nettles firmly, and had sometimes had a hand the size of a small pig.

  There were deserters behind the barricade. Deserters! How did that happen?

  It was a huge barricade, it was lined with armed men, there were deserters on it, and he had his orders. It was all clear.

  If only they'd, well, rebel. He'd sent Trooper Gabitass down there again, and by his account it seemed very peaceful. Normal city life appeared to be going on behind the barricade, which was more than you could say for the chaos outside it. If they'd fired on Gabitass, or thrown things, that would have made it so much easier. Instead they were acting…well…decently. That was no way for enemies of the state to behave!

  An enemy of the state was in front of the major now. Gabitass had not come back empty-handed.

  “Caught it sneakin' after me,” he said. To the captive he said, “Been behind the barricade, haven't we, my lad!”

  “Can it spea
k?” said the major, staring at the thing.

  “There's no need to be like that,” said Nobby Nobbs.

  “It's a street urchin, sir,” said the trooper.

  The major stared at all he could see of the prisoner, which was an oversized helmet and a nose.

  “Get it something to stand on, will you, captain?” he said, and waited while a stool was found. It did not, all things considered, improve matters. It just gave rise to questions.

  “It's got a Watch badge, trooper. Is it some kind of mascot?”

  “Carved it meself out of soap,” said Nobby. “So I can be a copper.”

  “Why?” said the major. There was something about the apparition that, despite the urgency, called for a kind of horrified yet fascinated study.

  “But I'm thinking of going for a soldier if I grow up,” Nobby went on, giving the major a happy grin. “Much better pickin's, the way things are going.”

  “I'm afraid you're not tall enough,” said the major quickly.

  “Don't see why not, the enemy reaches all the way to the ground,” said Nobby. “Anyway, people're lyin' down when you get their boots off. Ol' Sconner, he says the money's in teeth and earrings but I say every man's bound to have a pair of boots, right? Whereas there's a lot of bad teeth around these days and the false-teeth makers always demand a decent set—”

  “Do you mean to tell me that you want to join the army just to loot the battlefields?” said the major, completely shocked. “A little…lad like you?”

  “Once when ol' Sconner was sober for two days together he made me a little set of soldiers,” said Nobby. “An' they had these little boots that you could—”

  “Shut up,” said the major.

  “—take off, and tiny tiny little wooden teeth that you could—”

  “Will you shut up!” said the major. “Have you no interest in honour? 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—”