Night Watch

“A bit of morale building, sir. Instilling a bit of esprit de corps.”

…and hit a reef. Rust raised his eyebrows.

“Why?” he said. “The men's job is to do what they are told, as is yours. A group hug is not part of the arrangement, is it?”

“A bit of camaraderie helps the job along, sir. In my experience.”

“Are you eyeballing me. Keel?”

“No, sir. I am wearing an expression of honest doubt, sir. ‘Eyeballing’ is four steps up, right after ‘looking at you in a funny way’, sir. By standard military custom and practice, sir, sergeants are allowed to go all the way up to an expression of acute—”

“What's that pip over your stripes, man?”

“Means sergeant-at-arms, sir. They were a special kind of copper.”

The captain grunted, and glanced at the papers in front of him. “Lord Winder has received an extraordinary request that you be promoted to lieutenant, sergeant. It has come from Captain Swing of the Particulars. And his lordship listens to Captain Swing. Oh, and he wants you to be transferred to the Particulars. Personally, I think the man is mad.”

“I'm one hundred per cent behind you there, sir.”

“You do not wish to be a lieutenant?”

“No, sir. Too long for Dick and too short for Richard, sir,” said Vimes, focusing on a point a few inches above Rust's head.

“What?”

“Neither one thing nor t'other, sir.”

“Oh, so you'd like to be a captain, eh?” said Rust, grinning evilly.

“Nosir. Don't want to be an officer, sir. Get confused when I see more'n one knife and fork on the table, sir.”

“You certainly don't look like officer material to me, sergeant.”

“Nosir. Thank you, sir.” Good old Rust. Good young Rust. The same unthinking rudeness masquerading as blunt speaking, the same stiff-neckedness, the same petty malice.

Any sergeant worth his salt would see how to make use of that.

“Wouldn't mind transferring to the Particulars though, sir,” he volunteered. It was a bit of a gamble, but not much. Rust's mind was reliable.

“I expect you would like that, Keel,” said Rust. “No doubt you ran rings round that old fool Tilden and don't fancy the idea of a captain with his finger on the pulse, eh? No, you can damn well stay here, understand?”

Wonderful, thought Vimes. Sometimes it's like watching a wasp land on a stinging nettle: someone's going to get stung and you don't care.

“Yessir,” he said, eye still staring straight ahead.

“Have you shaved today, man?”

“Excused shaving, sir,” Vimes lied. “Doctor's orders. Been sewn up onna face, sir. Could shave one half, sir.”

He remained at eye front while Rust grudgingly stared at him. The cut was still pretty livid, and Vimes hadn't dared look under the patch yet.

“Hit yourself in the face with your own bell, did you?” grunted the captain.

Vimes's fingers twitched. “Very funny, sir,” he said.

“Now go and get the men fell in, Keel. Look sharp. I shall inspect them in a moment. And tell that idiot with the flat nose to clear the stable.”

“Sir?”

“My horse will be arriving shortly. I don't want to see that disgusting screw in there.”

“What, turn out Marilyn, sir?” said Vimes, genuinely shocked.

“That was an order. Tell him to jump to it.”

“What do you want us to do with her, sir?”

“I don't care! You are a sergeant, you've had an order. Presumably there are knackermen? People around here must eat something, no doubt?”

Vimes hesitated for a moment. Then he saluted.

“Right you are, sir,” he said.

“Do you know what I saw on the way here, sergeant?”

“Couldn't say, sir,” said Vimes, staring straight ahead.

“People were building barricades, sergeant.”

“Sir?”

“I know you heard me, man!”

“Well, it's to be expected, sir. It's happened before. People get jumpy. They hear rumours of mobs and out-of-control soldiers. They try to protect their street—”

“It is a flagrant challenge to government authority! People can't take the law into their own hands!”

“Well, yes. But these things generally run their course—”

“My gods, man, how did you manage to get promoted?”

Vimes knew he should leave it at that. Rust was a fool. But at the moment he was a young fool, which is more easily excused. Maybe it was just possible, if caught early enough, that he could be upgraded to idiot.

“Sometimes it pays to—” he began.

“Last night every Watch House in the city was mobbed,” said Rust, ignoring him. “Except this one. How do you account for that?” His moustache bristled. Not being attacked was definite proof of Vimes's lack of moral fibre.

“It was just a case of—”

“Apparently a man attempted an assault on you. Where is he now?”

“I don't know, sir. We bandaged him up and took him home.”

“You let him go?”

“Yessir. He was—” But Rust was always a man to interrupt an answer with a demand for the answer he was in fact interrupting.

“Why?”

“Sir, because at that time I thought it prudent to—”

“Three watchmen were killed last night, did you know that? There were gangs roaming the streets! Well, martial law has been declared! Today we're going to show them a firm hand! Get your men together! Now!”

Vimes saluted, turned about, and walked slowly down the stairs. He wouldn't have run for a big clock.

A firm hand. Right. Gangs roaming the streets. Well, we sure as hell never did anything when they were criminal gangs. And when you've got madmen and idiots on either side, and everything hangs in the balance…well, trouble is always easy to find, when you have enough people looking for it.

One of the hardest lessons of young Sam's life had been finding out that the people in charge weren't in charge. It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people made instead of thinking.

Most of the watchmen were clustered around the stairs. Snouty was quite good at internal communications of the worrying kind.

“Tidy yourselves, lads,” said Vimes. “Captain'll be down in a few minutes. Apparently it's time for a show of strength.”

“What strength?” said Billy Wiglet.

“Ah, Billy, what happens is, the vicious revolutionaries take one look at us and scuttle off back to their holes,” said Vimes. He was immediately sorry he'd said that. Billy hadn't learned irony.

“I mean we just give the uniforms an airing,” he translated.

“We'll get cheesed,” said Fred Colon.

“Not if we stick together,” said Sam.

“Right,” said Vimes. “After all we're heavily armed men going on patrol among civilians who are, by law, unarmed. If we're careful, we shouldn't get too badly hurt.”