Snuff

She stood back as a Quirmian officer handed Vimes a mug of coffee. It had sand in it, but never had sandy coffee tasted better. ‘All sorted out very well, you might say, sir. We even made sure those damn goblins caught their boat!’

Never in the field of coffee-making had so much of the stuff been sprayed so far and over so many. Vimes stared beyond the surf where, in the distance, a ship had left the port and was making good sail. He said, ‘Fetch me Acting Captain Haddock right now!’

Acting Captain Haddock arrived at a run six minutes later and Vimes couldn’t help noticing that he had a bit of breakfast around the edge of his mouth. ‘Our relationship with Commandant Fournier is cordial at the moment, is it not?’ said Vimes.

Haddock grinned widely. ‘Commander, when he gets down here you may have to try hard to stop him kissing you on both cheeks. Mrs Sillitoe is his daughter.’

‘Was happy to be of assistance,’ said Vimes, looking around absently, ‘and so would you tell these gentlemen that I want a fast boat, one fast enough to catch that ship, and a decent squad of men to crew it, and I want them now, and while I’m waiting I’d like someone to get me a clean shirt and a bacon sandwich … without avec.’

‘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 backwards, 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!²⁸ 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 favour 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.’