The Fifth Elephant

'A man could linger a long time over a meal like that,' said Fred. 'The trouble is, the Patrician, All, gets very short about carts parking on the street for more than ten minutes. He reckons that's a sort of crime.'

'Taking ten minutes to eat one of my lunches isn't a crime, Fred, it's a tragedy,' said All. 'It says here 'City Watch - $15 removal', Fred. That's a couple of days' profits, Fred.'

'Thing is,' said Fred Colon, 'it'll be paperwork, see? I can't just wave that away. I only wish I could. There's all them counterfoils on the spike in my office. If it was me running the Watch, of course... but my hands are tied, see...'

The two men stood some way apart, hands in pockets, apparently paying little attention to one another. Sergeant Colon began to whistle under his breath.

'I know a thing or two,' said All, carefully. 'People think waiters ain't got ears.'

'I know lots of stuff, All,' said Colon, jingling his pocket change.

Both men stared at the sky for a while.

'I may have some honey ice cream left over from yesterday—'

Sergeant Colon looked down at the cart.

'Here, Mister Jolson,' he said, in a voice of absolute surprise. 'Some complete bastard's put some sort of clamp on your wheel! Well, we'll soon see about that.'

Colon pulled a couple of round, white-painted paddles from his belt, sighted on the Watch House semaphore tower peeking over the top of the old lemonade factory, waited until the watching gargoyle signalled him, and with a certain amount of verve and flair ripped off an impression of a man with stiff arms playing two games of table tennis at once.

'The team'll be along any minute— ah, watch this...'

A little further along the street two trolls were carefully clamping a hay wagon. After a minute or two one of them happened to glance at the Watch House tower, nudged his colleague, produced two bats of his own and, with rather less elan than Sergeant Colon, sent a signal. When it was answered the trolls looked around, spotted Colon and lumbered towards him.

'Ta-da!' said Colon proudly.

'Amazing, this new technology,' said All Jolson admiringly. 'And they must've been, what, forty or fifty yards away?'

' 's'right, All. In the old days I'd've had to blow a whistle. And they'll arrive here knowin' it was me who wanted 'em, too.'

'Instead of having to look and see it was you,' said Jolson.

'Well, yeah,' said Colon, aware that what had transpired might not be the brightest ray of light in the new dawn of the communications revolution. 'Of course, it'd have worked just as well if they'd been streets away. On the other side of the city, even. And if I told the gargoyle to, as we say, 'put' it on the 'big' tower over on the Tump they'd have got it in Sto Lat within minutes, see?'

'And that's twenty miles.'

'At least.'

'Amazing, Fred.'

'Time moves on, All,' said Colon, as the trolls reached them.

'Constable Chert, who told you to clamp my friend's cart?' he demanded.

'Well, sarge, dis morning you said we was to clamp every—'

'Not this cart,' said Colon. 'Unlock it right now, and we'll say no more about it, eh?'

Constable Chert seemed to reach the conclusion that he wasn't being paid to think, and this was just as well because Sergeant Colon did not believe trolls gave value for money in that department. 'If you say so, sarge...'

'While you're doing that, me and All here will have a little chat, right, All?' said Fred Colon.

'That's right, Fred.'

'Well, I say chat, but I'll be mostly listenin', on account of having my mouth full.'

Snow cascaded from the fir branches. The man forced his way through, stood fighting for breath for a moment, and then set off across the clearing at a fast trot.

Across the valley he heard the first blast on the horn.

He had an hour, then, if he could trust them. He might not make it to the tower, but there were other ways out.

He had plans. He could outwit them. Keep off the snow as much as you can, double back, make use of the streams... It was possible, it had been done before. He was sure of that.

A few miles away sleek bodies set out through the forest. The hunt was on.

Elsewhere in Ankh-Morpork, the Fools' Guild was on fire.

This was a problem, because the Guild's fire brigade consisted largely of clowns.

And this was a problem because if you show a clown a bucket of water and a ladder he knows only one way to act. Years of training take over. It's something in the red nose speaking to him. He can't help himself.

Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch leaned against a wall and watched the show.

'We really must put that proposal for a civic fire service to the Patrician again,' he said. Across the street a clown picked up a ladder, turned, knocked the clown behind him into a bucket of water, then turned again to see what the commotion was, thus sending his rising victim into the bucket again with a surprising parping noise. The crowd watched silently. If it was funny, clowns wouldn't be doing it.

'The Guilds are all very much against it,' said Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, his second in command, as the clown with the ladder had a bucket of water poured down his trousers. 'They say it'd be trespass.'

The fire had taken hold in a first-floor room.

'If we let it burn it'd be a blow for entertainment in this city,' said Carrot earnestly.

Vimes looked sideways at him. That was a true Carrot comment. It sounded as innocent as hell, but you could take it a different way.

'It certainly would,' he said. 'Nevertheless, I suppose we'd better do something.' He stepped forward and cupped his hands.

'All right, this is the Watch! Bucket chain!' he shouted.

'Aw, must we?' said someone in the crowd.

'Yes, you must,' said Captain Carrot. 'Come on, everyone, if we form two lines we'll have this done in no time at all! What d'you say, eh? It might even be fun!'

And they did it, Vimes noted. Carrot treated everyone as if they were jolly good chaps and somehow, in some inexplicable way, they couldn't resist the urge not to prove him wrong.

And to the disappointment of the crowd the fire was soon put out, once the clowns were disarmed and led away by kind people.

Carrot reappeared, wiping his forehead, as Vimes lit a cigar.

'Apparently the fire-eater was sick,' he said.

'It's just possible we might never be forgiven,' said Vimes as they set off on patrol again. 'Oh, no... what now?'

Carrot was staring upwards, towards the nearest clacks tower.

'Riot in Cable Street,' he said. 'It's All Officers, sir.'

They broke into a run. You always did for an All Officers. The people in trouble might well be you.

There were more dwarfs on the streets as they got nearer, and Vimes recognized the signs. The dwarfs all wore preoccupied looks and were walking in the same direction.

'It's over,' he said, as they rounded a corner. 'You can tell by the sudden increase of suspiciously innocent bystanders.'

Whatever else the emergency had been, it had been a big one. The street was strewn with debris, and a fair amount of dwarfs. Vimes slowed down.