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 QuirmHe 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 afterwards–’
His eye caught the distant bulk of Gebra. Out there was a Klatchian army, and somewhere over there was the AnkhMorpork army, and he was 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 towards 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 laughing stock 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 Goriffs 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…