Terry Pratchett: Men at Arms

The problem with Destiny, of course, is that she is often not careful where she puts her finger.

Captain Sam Vimes, Ankh-Morpork City Guard (Night Watch), sat in the draughty anteroom to the Patrician's audience chamber with his best cloak on and his breastplate polished and his helmet on his knees.

He stared woodenly at the wall.

He ought to be happy, he told himself. And he was. In a way. Definitely. Happy as anything.

He was going to get married in a few days.

He was going to stop being a guard.

He was going to be a gentleman of leisure.

He took off his copper badge and buffed it absent-mindedly on the edge of his cloak. Then he held it up so that the light glinted off the patina'd surface. AMCW No.177. He sometimes wondered how many other guards had had the badge before him.

Well, now someone was going to have it after him.

This is Ankh-Morpork, Citie of One Thousand Surprises (according to the Guild of Merchants' guidebook). What more need be said? A sprawling place, home to a million people, greatest of cities on the Discworld, located on either side of the river Ankh, a waterway so muddy that it looks as if it is flowing upside down.

And visitors say: how does such a big city exist? What keeps it going? Since it's got a river you can chew, where does the drinking water come from? What is, in fact, the basis of its civic economy? How come it, against all probability, works?

Actually, visitors don't often say this. They usually say things like “Which way to the, you know, the… er… you know, the young ladies, right?”

But if they started thinking with their brains for a little while, that's what they'd be thinking.

The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork sat back on his austere chair with the sudden bright smile of a very busy person at the end of a crowded day who's suddenly found in his schedule a reminder saying: 7.00-7.05, Be Cheerful and Relaxed and a People Person.

“Well, of course I was very saddened to receive your letter, captain…”

“Yes, sir,” said Vimes, still as wooden as a furniture warehouse.

“ Please sit down, captain.”

“Yes, sir.” Vimes remained standing. It was a matter of pride.

“But of course I quite understand. The Ramkin country estates are very extensive, I believe. I'm sure Lady Ramkin will appreciate your strong right hand.”

“Sir?” Captain Vimes, while in the presence of the ruler of the city, always concentrated his gaze on a point one foot above and six inches to the left of the man's head.

“And of course you will be quite a rich man, captain.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I hope you have thought about that. You will have new responsibilities:”

“Yes, sir.”

It dawned on the Patrician that he was working on both ends of this conversation. He shuffled through the papers on his desk.

“And of course I shall have to promote a new chief officer for the Night Watch,” said the Patrician. “Have you any suggestions, captain?”

Vimes appeared to descend from whatever cloud his mind had been occupying. This was guard work .

“Well, not Fred Colon… He's one of Nature's sergeants…”

Sergeant Colon, Ankh-Morpork City Guard (Night Watch) surveyed the bright faces of the new recruits.

He sighed. He remembered his first day. Old Sergeant Wimbler. What a tartar! Tongue like a whiplash! If the old boy had lived to see this …

What was it called? Oh, yeah. Affirmative action hirin' procedure, or something. Silicon Anti-Defamation League had been going on at the Patrician, and now—

“Try it one more time, Lance-Constable Detritus,” he said. “The trick is, you stops your hand just above your ear. Now, just get up off the floor and try salutin' one more time. Now, then… Lance-Constable Cuddy?”

“Here!”

“Where?”

“In front of you, sergeant.”

Colon looked down and took a step back. The swelling curve of his more than adequate stomach moved aside to reveal the upturned face of Lance-Constable Cuddy, with its helpful intelligent expression and one glass eye.

“Oh. Right.”

“I'm taller than I look.”

Oh, gods, thought Sergeant Colon wearily. Add 'em up and divide by two and you've got two normal men, except normal men don't join the Guard. A troll and a dwarf. And that ain't the worst of it—

Vimes drummed his fingers on the desk.

“Not Colon, then,” he said. “He's not as young as he was. Time he stayed in the Watch House, keeping up on the paperwork. Besides, he's got a lot on his plate.”

“Sergeant Colon has always had a lot on his plate, I should say,” said the Patrician.

“With the new recruits, I mean,” said Vimes, meaningfully. “You remember, sir?”

The ones you told me I had to have? he added in the privacy of his head. They weren't to go in the Day Watch, of course. And those bastards in the Palace Guard wouldn't take them, either. Oh, no. Put 'em in the Night Watch, because it's a joke anyway and no-one'll really see 'em. No-one important, anyway.

Vimes had only given in because he knew it wouldn't be his problem for long.

It wasn't as if he was speciesist, he told himself. But the Watch was a job for men.

“How about Corporal Nobbs?” said the Patrician.

“Nobby?”

They shared a mental picture of Corporal Nobbs.

“No.”

“No.”

“Then of course there is,” the Patrician smiled, “Corporal Carrot. A fine young man. Already making a name for himself, I gather.”

“That's… true,” said Vimes.

“A further promotion opportunity, perhaps? I would value your advice.”

Vimes formed a mental picture of Corporal Carrot—

“This,” said Corporal Carrot, “is the Hubwards Gate. To the whole city. Which is what we guard.”

“What from?” said Lance-Constable Angua, the last of the new recruits.

“Oh, you know. Barbarian hordes, warring tribesmen, bandit armies… that sort of thing.”

“What? Just us? ”

“Us? Oh, no!” Carrot laughed. “That'd be silly, wouldn't it? No, if you see anything like that, you just ring your bell as hard as you like.”

“What happens then?”

“Sergeant Colon and Nobby and the rest of 'em will come running along just as soon as they can.”

Lance-Constable Angua scanned the hazy horizon.

She smiled.

Carrot blushed.

Constable Angua had mastered saluting first go. She wouldn't have a full uniform yet, not until someone had taken a, well, let's face it, a breastplate along to old Remitt the armourer and told him to beat it out really well here and here, and no helmet in the world would cover all that mass of ash-blond hair but, it occurred to Carrot, Constable Angua wouldn't need any of that stuff really. People would be queuing up to get arrested.

“So what do we do now?” she said.

“Proceed back tp the Watch House, I suppose,” said Carrot. “Sergeant Colon'll be reading out the evening report, I expect.”

She'd mastered “proceeding”, too. It's a special walk devised by beat officers throughout the multiverse—a gentle lifting of the instep, a careful swing of the leg, a walking pace that can be kept up hour after hour, street after street. Lance-Constable Detritus wasn't going to be ready to learn “proceeding” for some time, or at least until he stopped knocking himself out every time he saluted.

“Sergeant Colon,” said Angua. “He was the fat one, yes?”

“That's right.”

“Why has he got a pet monkey?”

“Ah,” said Carrot. “I think it is Corporal Nobbs to whom you refer…”

“It's human? He's got a face like a join-the-dots puzzle!”

“He does have a very good collection of boils, poor man. He does tricks with them. Just never get between him and a mirror.”