Night Watch

It was hard for the average copper to deal with people like that. They expected people, when heavily outnumbered, to give in or try to deal or at least just stop moving. They didn't expect people to kill for a five-dollar watch. (A hundred dollar watch, now, that'd be different. This was Ankh-Morpork, after all.)

“Was Stronginthearm married?” he said.

“No, sir. Lived in New Cobblers with his parents.”

Parents, thought Vimes. That made it worse.

“Anyone been to tell them?” he asked. “And don't say it was Nobby. We don't want any repeat of that ‘bet you a dollar you're the widow Jackson’ nonsense.”

“I went, sir. As soon as we got the news.”

“Thank you. They took it badly?”

“They took it…solemnly, sir.”

Vimes groaned. He could imagine the expressions.

“I'll write them the official letter,” he said, pulling open his desk. “Get someone to take it round, will you? And say I'll be over later. Perhaps this isn't the time to—” No, hold on, they were dwarfs, dwarfs weren't bashful about money. “Forget that—say we'll have all the details of his pension and so on. Died on duty, too. Well, near enough. That's extra. It all adds up.” He rummaged in his cupboards. “Where's his file?”

“Here, sir,” said Carrot, handing it over smoothly. “We are due at the palace at ten, sir. Watch Committee. But I'm sure they'll understand,” he added, seeing Vimes's face. “I'll go and clean out Stronginthearm's locker, sir, and I expect the lads'll have a whip-round for flowers and everything…”

Vimes pondered over a sheet of headed paper after the captain had gone. A file, he had to refer to a damn file. But there were so many coppers these days…

A whip-round for flowers. And a coffin. You look after your own. Sergeant Dickins had said that, a long time ago…

He wasn't good with words, least of all ones written down, but after a few glances at the file to refresh his memory he wrote down the best he could think of.

And they were all good words and, more or less, they were the right ones. But in truth Stronginthearm was just a decent dwarf who'd been paid to be a copper. He'd joined up because, these days, joining the Watch was quite a good choice of career. The pay wasn't bad, there was a worthwhile pension, there was a wonderful medical scheme if you had the nerve to submit to Igor's ministrations in the cellar and, after a year or so, an Ankh-Morpork trained copper could leave the city and get a job in the Watches of the other cities on the plain with instant promotion. That was happening all the time. Sammies, they were called, even in towns that had never heard of Sam Vimes. He was just a little proud of that. “Sammies” meant watchmen who could think without their lips moving, who didn't take bribes—much, and then only at the level of beer and doughnuts, which even Vimes recognized as the grease that helps the wheels run smoothly—and were, on the whole, trustworthy. For a given value of “trust”, at least.

The sound of running feet indicated that Sergeant Detritus was bringing some of the latest trainees back from their morning run. He could hear the jody Detritus had taught them. Somehow, you could tell it was made up by a troll:

“Now we sing dis stupid song!
Sing it as we run along!
Why we sing dis we don't know!
We can't make der words rhyme prop'ly!”

“Sound off!”

“One! Two!”

“Sound off!”

“Many! Lots!”

“Sound off.”

“Er…what?”

It still irked Vimes that the little training school in the old lemonade factory was turning out so many coppers who quit the city the moment their probation was up. But it had its advantages. There were Sammies almost as far as Uberwald now, all speeding up the local promotion ladder. It helped, knowing names, and knowing that those names had been taught to salute him. The ebb and flow of politics often meant that the local rulers weren't talking to one another, but via the semaphore towers, the Sammies talked all the time.

He realized he was humming a different song under his breath. It was a tune he'd forgotten for years. It went with the lilac, scent and song together. He stopped, feeling guilty.

He was finishing the letter when there was a knock at the door.

“Nearly done!” he shouted.

“It'th me, thur,” said Constable Igor, pushing his head round the door, and then he added, “Igor, sir.”

“Yes, Igor?” said Vimes, wondering not for the first time why anyone with stitches all round his head needed to tell anyone who he was.1

“I would just like to thay, sir, that I could have got young Thtronginthearm back on his feet, thur,” said Igor, a shade reproachfully.

Vimes sighed. Igor's face was full of concern, tinged with disappointment. He had been prevented from plying his…craft. He was naturally disappointed.