‘Yes, sarge, thank you. Just wanted to see how good you were.’
He elbowed Vimes in the stomach and twisted away. There was some murmuring from the watchers but Vimes, bent double and with tears running from his eyes, raised a hand.
‘No, it was fair enough, fair enough,’ he panted. ‘We’ve all got something to learn.’ He put his hands on his knees, wheezing a little more theatrically than he needed to.
He was impressed that Ned wasn’t falling for it. The man kept his distance, circling slowly. He was holding his truncheon. A less experienced fighter would have come to check that ol’ sarge was all right, and would have suffered for it.
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‘That’s right, sarge,’ said Ned. ‘I want to see what you can teach me. Sam’s too trusting.’
Vimes’s mind riffled desperately through options.
‘So, sarge,’ said Ned, still moving, ‘what would you do, sarge, if you were unarmed and a man came at you with a truncheon?’
Get armed quick, thought Vimes, if I thought he was as good as you.
He ducked and rolled. Ned missed that. When Vimes started to move right he’d concentrated on the left, on the basis that from someone like Vimes the first move had to be a feint. By the time he caught himself and turned, Vimes had grabbed his scabbard and was rising, sword sliding out.
‘Ah, raising the stakes. Good lesson, sarge,’ said Ned. He drew his own sword. It gleamed; most of the Watch swords would have had difficulty cutting butter. ‘Now we’re level again. What next, sarge?’
They circled. Blimey, thought Vimes, who taught him? And he’s grinning, and no wonder. This isn’t a contest. He knows I can’t cut him, not like this, not in front of everyone. He can accidentally hit me and get away with it, but a sergeant’s supposed to know better. And we can’t raise the stakes any higher.
Hold on…
He hurled the sword at the wall. It stuck in, by sheer luck.
That impressed the watchers.
‘Got to give you a chance, Ned,’ he said, moving away.
You can always learn, Vimes thought. He remembered Gussie Two Grins. Sam wouldn’t run into him for five years or so. It would be a real education. Two Grins was the dirtiest fighter Vimes had ever met. Anything was a weapon, anywhere was a target. Two Grins was a kind of genius in that limited area. He could see the weapon in anything – a wall, a cloth, a piece of
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fruit…
He wasn’t even a big man. He was small and wiry. But he liked fighting big men, on the basis that there was more of them to bite. After a few drinks, though, it was hard to know what Two Grins was fighting. He’d fight the man next to him simply as a substitute for kneeing the whole universe in the groin.
He’d been called Two Grins ever since someone glassed him in the face; Gussie had been so marinated in adrenalin at that point that he regarded this as a mere detail. The scar had left a happy smiley face. Sam had learned a lot from Gussie Two Grins.
‘What’s this about?’ he murmured, just loud enough for Ned to hear.
‘Just want to find out what you know, sarge,’ said Ned, still circling. ‘Seems to me you know too much.’
He lunged. Vimes darted back, flailed with the scabbard like a man with no hope and, as Ned laughed and leaned out of his way, shifted his grip on the stiff leather.
‘I’ve got the helmet on, as per regulations,’ said Ned. ‘And the armour. Hard to punch me out, sarge.’
Even with Detritus yelling at them, not one watchman in seven really used a sword properly. Ned did. There weren’t many openings.
Oh, well… time for artful.
He took a step back, stopped, and saw what was happening behind Coates. He tried to hide it, but he couldn’t stop the momentary flash of relief in his eyes.
Coates couldn’t stop the momentary flicker of attention.
Vimes punched up, the scabbard an extension of his arm. The stiff leather caught the man under the chin, thrusting his head back. Then the leather was brought down on the sword hand and, as an afterthought, Vimes kicked Ned on the shin just
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enough to make him collapse. He’d always had an allergy to edged weapons too near his face.
‘Well done, nice try,’ he said, and turned his back and faced the crowd. To the sound of gurgling behind him, he said,
‘Anything’s a weapon, used right. Your bell is a club. Anything that pokes the other man hard enough to give you more time is a good thing. Never, ever threaten anyone with your sword unless you really mean it, because if he calls your bluff you suddenly don’t have many choices and they’re all the wrong ones. Don’t be frightened to use what you learned when you were kids. We don’t get marks for playing fair. And for closeup fighting, as your senior sergeant I explicitly forbid you to investigate the range of coshes, blackjacks and brass knuckles sold by Mrs Goodbody at No. 8 Easy Street, at a range of prices and sizes to suit all pockets, and should any of you approach me privately I absolutely will not demonstrate a variety of specialist blows suitable for these useful yet tricky instruments. Right, let’s limber up. I want you all out here with your truncheons in two minutes. You think it’s just a silly club. I will show you otherwise. Jump to it!’
He turned to the stricken Ned, who’d raised himself to a sitting position.
‘Nice moves, Mr Coates. You didn’t learn them in the Watch, I know that. Anything we need to discuss? Care to tell me where you were last night? Morphic Street, maybe?’
‘Day off,’ muttered Ned, rubbing his jaw.
‘Right, right. None of my business. Seems to me we’ve failed to hit it off, Ned.’
‘ ‘sright.’
‘You think I’in some kind of spy.’
‘I know you’re not John Keel.’
Vimes kept his face perfectly impassive – which was, he
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realized, a complete giveaway in itself.
‘Why d’you say that?’ he said.
‘I don’t have to tell you. You ain’t a Watch sergeant, either.
And you were lucky just now, and that’s all I’in saying.’ Ned got to his feet as the other watchmen filed out into the yard again.
Vimes let him go, and turned his attention to the men.
None of them had ever been taught anything. They’d learned, to a greater or usually a lesser extent, from one another. And Vimes knew where that road went. On that road coppers rolled drunks for their small change and assured one another that bribes were just perks, and it got worse.
He was all for getting recruits out on the street, but you had to train them first. You needed someone like Detritus bellowing at them for six weeks, and lectures about duty and prisoners’ rights and the ‘service to the public’. And then you could hand them over to the street monsters who told them all the other stuff, like how to hit someone where it wouldn’t leave a mark and when it was a good idea to stick a metal soupplate down the front of your trousers before attending to a bar brawl.
And if you were lucky and they were sensible, they found somewhere between impossible perfection and the Pit where they could be real coppers – slightly tarnished, because the job did that to you, but not rotten.
He formed them into twos and set them attacking and
defending. It was dreadful to watch. He let it go on for five minutes.
‘All right, all right,’ he said, clapping his hands. ‘Very good indeed. When the circus comes to town I’ll definitely
recommend you.’ The men sagged, and grinned sheepishly as he went on: ‘Don’t you know any of the moves? The Throat Slam, the Red Hot Poker, the Ribrattler? Say I’in coming at you with a big, big club… what do you do?’
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‘Run away, sarge,’ said Wiglet. There was laughter.
‘How far can you run?’ said Vimes. ‘Got to fight sometime.
Lance-Corporal Coates?’
Ned Coates had not been taking part. He’d been leaning
against the wall in a sort of stationary swagger, watching the sad show with disdain.
‘Sarge?’ he said, propelling himself upright with the minimum of effort.
‘Show Wiglet how it’s done.’
Coates pulled out his truncheon. It was, Vimes saw,
custommade, slightly longer than the general issue. He took up station in front of the constable, with his back very expressively towards Vimes.
‘What do you want me to do, sarge?’ he said, over his
shoulder.
‘Show him a few decent moves. Take him by surprise.’
‘Right you are, sarge.’
Vimes watched the desultory clatter of sticks. One, two, three…
and around Ned came, truncheon whistling through the air.