Jingo (31 page)

His troops lay in wait. Well, if you could call them troops. He’d
said
they were overstretched…well, he hadn’t actually
said
, because that sort of thing could get you into trouble in this man’s army, but he’d thought it very hard. Half of them were keen kids who thought that if you went into battle shouting and waving your sword in the air the enemy just ran away. They’d never faced a D’reg chicken coming in at eye height.

As for the rest of it…in the night people had run into one another, ambushed one another by mistake and were now as jittery as peas on a drum. A man had lost his sword and swore that someone had walked away with it stuck right through him. And some kind of rock had got up and walked around hitting people. With other people.

The sun was well up now.

“It’s the waiting that’s the worst part,” said his sergeant, next to him.

“It
might
be the worst part,” said the commander. “Or, there again, the bit where they suddenly rise out of the desert and cut you in half might be the worst part.” He stared mournfully at the treacherously empty sand. “Or the bit where a maddened sheep tries to gnaw your nose off might be the worst part. In fact, when you think of all the things that can happen when you’re surrounded by a horde of screaming D’regs, the bit where they aren’t there at all is, I think you’ll find, the
best
part.”

The sergeant wasn’t trained for this sort of thing. So he said, “They’re late.”

“Good. Rather them than us.”

“Sun’s right up now, sir.”

The commander looked at his shadow. It was full day, and the sand was mercifully free of his blood. The commander had been pacifying various recalcitrant parts of Klatch for long enough to wonder why, if he was pacifying people, he always seemed to be fighting them. Experience had taught him never to say things like “I don’t like it, it’s too quiet.” There was no such thing as too quiet.

“They might have decamped in the night, sir,” said the sergeant.

“That doesn’t sound like the D’regs. They never run away. Anyway, I can see their tents.”

“Why don’t we rush ’em, sir?”

“You haven’t fought D’regs before, sergeant?”

“No, sir. I’ve been pacifying the Mad Savatars in Uhistan, though, and they’re—”

“The D’regs are worse, sergeant. They pacify right back at you.”

“I didn’t say how mad the Savatars were, sir.”

“Compared to the D’regs, they were merely slightly vexed.”

The sergeant felt that his reputation was being impugned.

“How about I take a few men and investigate, sir?”

The commander glanced at the sun again. Already the air was too hot to breathe.

“Oh, very
well
. Let’s go.”

The Klatchians advanced on the camp. There were the tents, and the ash of fires. But there were no camels and horses, merely a long scuffed trail leading off among the dunes.

Morale began to rise a little. Attacking a dangerous enemy who isn’t there is one of the more attractive forms of warfare, and there was a certain amount of assertion about how lucky the D’regs were to have run away in time, and some extemporizing on the subject of what the soldiers would have done to the D’regs if they’d caught them…

“Who’s that?” said the sergeant.

A figure appeared between the dunes, riding on a camel. His white robes fluttered in the breeze.

He slid down when he reached the Klatchians, and waved at them.

“Good morning, gentlemen! May I persuade you to surrender?”

“Who are you?”

“Captain Carrot, sir. If you would be kind enough to lay down your weapons no one will get hurt.”

The commander looked up. Blobs were appearing along the tops of the dunes. They rose, and turned out to be heads.

“They’re…D’regs, sir!” said the sergeant.

“No. D’regs would be charging, sergeant.”

“Oh, sorry. Shall I tell them to charge?” said Carrot. “Is that what you’d prefer?”

The D’regs were all along the dunes now. The climbing sun glittered off metal.

“Are you telling me,” the commander began slowly, “that you can persuade D’regs
not
to charge?”

“It was tricky, but I think they’ve got the idea,” said Carrot.

The commander considered his position. There were D’regs on either side. His troop were practically huddling together. And this red-headed, blue-eyed man was smiling at him.

“How do they feel about the merciful treatment of prisoners?” he ventured.

“I think they could get the hang of it. If I insist.”

The commander glanced at the silent D’regs again.

“Why?” he said. “
Why
aren’t they fighting us?” he said.

“My commander says he doesn’t want unnecessary loss of life, sir,” said Carrot. “That’s Commander Vimes, sir. He’s sitting on that dune up there.”

“
You
can persuade armed D’regs not to charge and
you
have a commander?”

“Yes, sir. He says this is a police action.”

The commander swallowed. “We give in,” he said.

“What, just like that, sir?” said his sergeant. “Without a fight?”

“
Yes
, sergeant. Without a fight. This man can make water run uphill and
he
has a commander. I love the idea of giving in without a fight. I’ve fought for ten years and giving in without a fight is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

Water dripped off the Boat’s metal ceiling and blobbed on to the paper in front of Leonard of Quirm. He wiped it away. It might have been boring, waiting in a small metal can under a nondescript jetty, but Leonard had no concept of the term.

Absentmindedly, he jotted a brief sketch of an improved ventilation system.

He started to watch his own hand. Almost without his guidance, taking its instructions from somewhere else in his head, it drew a cutaway of a much larger version of the Boat. Here, here and here…there could be a bank of a hundred oars rather than pedals, each one manned—his pencil caressed the paper—by a well-muscled and not overdressed young warrior. A boat that would pass unseen under other boats, take men wherever they needed to go.
Here
a giant saw, affixed to the roof, so that when rowed at speed it could cut the hulls of enemy ships. And
here
and
here
a tube…

He stopped and stared at his drawing for a while. Then he sighed and started to tear it up.

Vimes watched from the dune. He couldn’t hear much from up here, but he didn’t need to.

Angua sat down beside him. “It’s working, isn’t it?” she said.

“Yes.”

“What’s he going to do?”

“Oh, he’ll take their weapons and let ’em go, I suppose.”

“Why do people follow him?” said Angua.

“Well, you’re his girlfriend, you ought—”

“That’s different. I love him because he’s kind without thinking about it. He doesn’t watch his own thoughts like other people do. When he does good things it’s because he’s decided to do them, not because he’s trying to measure up to something. He’s so simple. Anyway, I’m a wolf living with people, and there’s a name for wolves that live with people. If he whistled, I’d come running.”

Vimes tried not to show his embarrassment.

Angua smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Vimes. You’ve said it yourself. Sooner or later, we’re
all
someone’s dog.”

“It’s like hypnotism,” said Vimes hurriedly. “People follow him to see what’s going to happen next. They tell themselves that they’re just going along with it for a while and can stop any time they want to, but they never want to. It’s damn magic.”

“No. Have you ever really watched him? I bet he’d found out everything about Jabbar by the time he’d talked to him for ten minutes. I bet he knows the name of every camel. And he’ll remember it all. People don’t take that much interest in other people, usually.” Her fingers idly traced a pattern in the sand. “So he makes you feel important.”

“Politicians do that—” Vimes began.

“Not the way he does, believe me. I expect Lord Vetinari remembers facts about people—”

“Oh, you’d better believe
that
!”

“—but Carrot takes an
interest
. He doesn’t even think about it. He makes space in his head for people. He takes an interest, and so people think they’re interesting. They feel…better when he’s around.”

Vimes glanced down. Her fingers were drawing aimlessly in the sand again. We’re all changing in the desert, he thought. It’s not like the city, hemming your thoughts in. You can feel your mind expand to the horizons. No wonder this is where religions start. And suddenly here I am, probably not legally, just trying to do my job. Why? Because I’m too damn stupid to stop and think before I give chase, that’s why. Even Carrot knew better than to do that.
I’d
have just chased after Ahmed’s ship without a thought, but he was bright enough to report back to me first. He did what a responsible officer ought to do, but me…

“Vetinari’s terrier,” he said aloud. “Chase first, and think about it afterward—”

His eye caught the distant bulk of Gebra. Out there was a Klatchian army, and somewhere over
there
was the Ankh-Morpork army, and he was with a handful of people and no plan because he’d chased first and—

“But I had to,” he said. “Any copper wouldn’t have let a suspect like Ahmed get—”

Once again he had the feeling that the problem he was facing wasn’t really a problem at all. It was something very obvious.
He
was the problem. He wasn’t thinking right.

Come to think of it, he hadn’t really
thought
at all.

He glanced down again at the trapped company. They had stripped down to their loincloths and were looking very sheepish, as men generally do in their underwear.

Carrot’s white robe still flapped in the breeze. He hasn’t been here a day, thought Vimes, and already he’s wearing the desert like a pair of sandals.

“…er…bingeley-bingeley beep?”

“Is that your demon diary?” said Angua.

Vimes rolled his eyes. “Yes. Although it seems to be talking about someone else.”

“…er…three pee em,” the demon muttered slowly, “…day not filled in…Check Wall Defences…”

“See? It thinks I’m in Ankh-Morpork! It cost Sybil three hundred dollars and it can’t even keep track of where I am.”

He flicked his cigar butt away and stood up.

“I’d better get down there,” he said. “After all, I
am
the boss.”

He slithered his way down the dune and strolled toward Carrot, who salaamed to him.

“A salute would do, captain, thanks all the same.”

“Sorry, sir. I think I got a bit carried away.”

“Why’ve you made them strip off?”

“Makes them a bit of a laughingstock when they return, sir. A blow to their pride.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I’ve let their commander keep his clothes on, though. It doesn’t do to show up the officers.”

“Really?” said Vimes.

“And some want to join us, sir. There’s Goriff’s lad and a few others. They were just dragooned into the army yesterday. They don’t even know why they’re fighting. So I said they could.”

Vimes took the captain aside. “Er…I don’t remember suggesting that any of the prisoners joined us,” he said quietly.

“Well, sir…I thought, what with our army approaching, and since quite a lot of these lads are from various corners of the empire and don’t like the Klatchians any more than we do, I thought that a flying column of guerrilla fighters—”

“We aren’t soldiers!”

“Er, I thought we
were
soldiers—”

“Yes, yes, all right. In a
way
…but really we’re coppers, like we’ve always been. We don’t kill people unless—”

Ahmed? Everyone’s slightly on edge when he’s around, he worries people, he gets information from all over the place, he seems to go where he pleases, and he’s always around when there’s trouble—Damn damn
damn
…

He ran through the crowd until he reached Jabbar, who was watching Carrot with the usual puzzled smile that Carrot caused in innocent bystanders.

“Tree dace,” said Vimes. “Three days. That’s seventy-two hours!”

“Yes, offendi?” said Jabbar. It was the voice of someone who recognized dawn, noon and sunset, and just let everything in between happen whenever it liked.

“So why’s he called 71-hour Ahmed? What’s so special about the extra hour?”

Jabbar grinned nervously.

“Did he
do
something after seventy-one hours?” said Vimes.

Jabbar folded his arms. “I will not say.”

“He told you to keep us here?”

“Yes.”

“But not to kill us.”

“Oh, I would not kill my friend Sir Sam Mule—”

“And don’t give me all that eyeball rubbish,” said Vimes. “He wanted time to get somewhere and do something, right?”

“I will not say.”

“You don’t need to,” said Vimes. “Because we are
leaving
. And if you kill us…well, probably you can. But 71-hour Ahmed would not like that, I expect.”

Jabbar looked like a man making a difficult decision.

“He will be coming back!” he said. “Tomorrow! No problem!”

“I’m not waiting! And I don’t think he wants me killed, Jabbar. He wants me alive. Carrot?”

Carrot hurried over. “Yes, sir?”

Vimes was aware that Jabbar was staring at him in horror.

“We’ve lost Ahmed,” he said. “Even Angua can’t pick up his trail with the sand blowing all over the place. We’ve got no place here. We’re not
needed
here.”

“But we
are
, sir!” Carrot burst out. “We could help the desert tribes—”

“Oh, you want to stay and fight?” said Vimes. “Against the Klatchians?”

“Against the
bad
Klatchians, sir.”

“Ah, well, that’s the trick, isn’t it? When one of them comes screaming at you waving a sword, how do you spot his moral character? Well, you can stay if you like and fight for the good name of Ankh-Morpork. It should be a pretty short fight. But I’m off. Jenkins probably hasn’t got afloat again. Okay, Jabbar?”