Sometimes when he woke up he saw the Patrician hunched over Leonard’s drawings, a gaunt silhouette in the light of the candle – reading, making notes…
He was in the immediate company of a man even the Assassins’ Guild was frightened of, another man
who would stay up all night in order to invent an alarm clock to wake him up in the morning, and a man who had never knowingly changed his underwear.
And he was at sea.
He tried to look on the bright side. What was the main reason why he hated boats? The fact that they sank, right? But this one had the sinking built in right from the start And you didn’t have to watch the waves going up and down, because they were already above you.
All this was logical. It just wasn’t very comforting.
When he awoke at one point there were faint voices coming from the other end of the vessel.
‘––don’t quite understand, my lord. Why them?’
‘They do what they’re told, they tend to believe the last thing they heard, they’re not bright enough to ask questions, and they have that certain unshakable loyalty available to those unencumbered by too much intelligence.’
‘I suppose so, my lord.’
‘Such men are valuable, believe me.’
Sergeant Colon turned over and tried to make himself comfortable. Clad I’m not like those poor bastards, he thought as he drifted off to sleep on the bosom of the deep. I’m a man with special qualities.
Vimes shook his head. The stem light of the Klatchian ship was barely visible in the gloom.
‘Are we gaining on them?’ he said.
Captain Jenkins nodded. ‘We might be. There’s a lot of sea between us.’
‘And has all excess weight been thrown overboard?’
‘Yes! What do you want me to do, shave my beard off?’
Carrot’s face appeared over the edge of the hold, ‘All the lads are bedded down, sir.’
‘Right.’
‘I’ll turn in for a few hours too, sir, if it’s all right with you.’
‘Sorry, captain?’
‘I’ll get my head down, sir.’
‘But. .. but–’ Vimes waved vaguely at the darkening horizon, I we’re in hot pursuit of your girlfriend! Among other things,’ he added.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘So aren’t you… you mean you can… you want to… captain, you intend to go and have a bit of a nap?’
‘To be fresh for when we catch up with them. Yes, sir. If I spend the whole night staring out there worrying then I’ll probably be a bit useless When we catch up with them, sir.’
It made sense. It really did make sense. Of course it made sense. Vimes could see the sense all over it. Carrot had actually sat down and thought sensibly about things.
‘You’ll be able to get to sleep, will you?’ he said weakly.
‘Oh, yes. I owe it to Angua.’
‘Oh. Well… goodnight, then.’
Carrot disappeared into the hold again.
‘Good heavens,’ said Jenkins. ‘Is he real?’
‘Yes,’ said Vimes.
‘I mean… would you go and bang your ear if he was chasing your lady in that ship?’
Vimes said nothing.
Jenkins sniggered. ‘Mind you, if it was Lady Sybil, she’d be a bit lower on the waterline–’
‘You just watch the… the sea. Don’t run into any damn whales or anything,’ said Vimes, and strode up to the sharp end.
Carrot, he thought. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t believe it…
‘They’re slowing, Mr Vimes!’ Jenkins called out.
‘What?’
‘I reckon they’re slowing down, I said!’
‘Good.’
‘So what’re you going to do when we catch them?’
‘Er. ..’Vimes hadnt given this a lot of thought. But he recalled a very bad woodcut he’d once seen in a book about pirates.
‘We’ll swing across on to them with our cutlasses in our teeth?’ he said.
‘Really?’ said Jenkins. ‘That’s good. I haven’t seen that done in years. Only ever seen it done once, in fact.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘Yes, this lad’d seen the idea in a book and he swung across into the other ship’s rigging with his cutlass clenched, as you say, between his teeth.’
‘Yes?’
‘Topless Harry, we wrote on his coffin.’
‘Oh.’
‘I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a soft–boiled egg after you’ve picked up your knife and sli–’
‘All right, I see the point. What do you suggest?’
‘Grapnels. You can’t beat grapnels. Catch ’em on the other ship and just pull ’em towards you.’
‘And you’ve got grapnels?’
‘Oh, yes. Saw some only today, in fact.’
‘Good. Then–’
‘As I recall,’ Jenkins went on relentlessly, ‘it was when your Sergeant Detritus was chucking stuff over the side and he said, “What shall we do with dese
bendy, hooky things, sir?” and someone, can’t recall his name just at this minute, said, “They’re dead weight, throw them over.”‘
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘Oh, well, I didn’t like to,’ said Jenkins. ‘You were doing so well.’
‘Don’t mess me about, captain. Otherwise I’ll clap you in irons.’
‘No, you ain’t going to do that, and I’ll tell you why. First, ‘cos when Captain Carrot said, “These chains, sir, what shall I do with them?” you said–’
‘Now, you listen to–’
‘–and, second, I don’t reckon you know anything about ships, oh deary me. We don’t clap people in irons, we put them in chains. Do you know how to splice the mainbrace? ‘Cos I don’t. All that yohoho stuff’s for landlubbers, or it would be if we ever used words like landlubber. Do you know the difference between port and starboard? I don’t. I’ve never even drunk starboard. Shiver my timber!’
‘Isn’t it “shiver my timbers”?’
‘I’ve been ill.’ Captain Jenkins spun the wheel. ‘Also, this is a frisky wind and me and my crew know how to pull the strings that make the big square canvas things work properly. If your men tried it you’d soon find out how far it is to land.’
‘How far is it to land?’
‘About thirty fathoms, hereabouts.’
The light was noticeably nearer.
‘Bingeley–bingeley beep!’
‘Good grief, what now?’ said Vimes.
‘Eight pee em. Er… Narrowly Escape Assassination by Klatchian Spy?’
Vimes went cold. ‘Where?’ he said, looking around wildly.
‘Corner of Brewer Street and Broadway,’ said the little sing–song voice.
‘But I’m not there!’
‘What’s the point of having appointments, then? What’s the point of my making an effort? You told me you wanted to know what you ought to–’
‘Listen, you don’t have an appointment for being assassinated!’
The demon went silent for a moment, and then said:
‘You mean it should be on your To Do list?’ Its voice was trembling.
‘You mean like: “To Do: Die”?’
‘Look, it’s no good taking it out on me just because you’re not on the right time line!’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘Aha, I knew you didn’t read the manual! Chapter xvii–2(c) makes it very clear that sticking to one reality is vitally important, otherwise the Uncertainty Principle says–’
‘Forget I asked, all right?’
Vimes glared at Jenkins and at the distant ship.
‘We’ll do this my way, wherever the hell we are,’ he said. He strode to the hold and pulled aside a hatchway. ‘Detritus?’
The Klatchian sailors struggled with the canvas while their captain screamed at them.
71–hour Ahmed didn’t scream. He just stood with his sword in his hand, watching.
The captain hurried over to him, trembling with fear and holding a length of rope.
‘See, wali?’ he said. ‘Someone cut it!’
‘Who would do that?’ said 71–hour Ahmed quietly.
‘I do not know, but when I find him–’
‘The dogs are almost on us,’ said Ahmed. ‘You and your men will work faster.’
‘Who could have done such a thing?’ said the captain. ‘You were here, how could they–?’
His gaze flickered from the cut rope to the sword.
‘Was there something you wished to say?’ said Ahmed.
The captain hadn’t got where he was by being stupid. He spun round.
‘Get that sail up right now, you festering sons of bitches!’ he screamed.
‘Good,’ said 71–hour Ahmed.
Detritus’s crossbow was originally a three–man, siege weapon, but he had removed the windlass as an unnecessary encumbrance. He cocked it by hand. Usually the mere sight of the troll pulling the string back with one finger was enough to make the strongwilled surrender.
He looked doubtfully at the distant light.
‘It a million–to–one chance,’ he said. ‘Got to be closer’n this.’
‘Just hit it below the waterline so they can’t cut the rope” said Vimes.
‘Right. Right.’
‘What’s the problem, sergeant?’
‘We headin’ for Klatch, right?’
‘Well, in that direction, yes.’
‘Only… I’m gonna be really stoopid in Klatch, ‘cos a der heat, right?’
‘I hope we’re going to stop them before we get there, Detritus.’
‘I ain’t keen on bein’ stoopid. I know people say, that troll Detritus, he ficker than a, than a–’
‘–brick sandwich–’ said Vimes, staring at the light.
‘Right. Only I hearin’ it get really, really hot in der desert…’