Snuff

And what would a desperate pilot do then? What would he do if a knife was held to the throat of a wife, or a child? What else could he do but sail on, trusting a lifetime of experience to see them all to safety? And it wouldn’t be one unwelcome guest, no, because then you would try to run the boat heavily aground while you, muscles tensed, would rely on the confusion to leap at the fallen man and strangle him with your bare hands, but that would only work if he hadn’t brought along an ally. And so then you stayed at the wheel, hoping and praying, and expecting, at any moment, the rumble of the damn slam.

Feeney was sprinting along the bank after him now, and managed to pant, ‘What are we going to do, sir? Seriously, what are we going to do!’

Vimes ignored Feeney for a moment. Rain, boiling surf and fallen logs were enough to contend with, but he kept his eye on the line of barges. Right now there was a rhythm as they snaked back and forth, but it was constantly interrupted by bits of driftwood and whatever attempt at steering was happening along there in the wheelhouse. Every time the rearmost barge hit the bank there was a moment, one precious little moment, when a man might jump aboard, if that man were foolish.

So he jumped, and realized that a jump would have to beget another jump and failure to keep the rhythm would mean falling back into the torrent, but jumping on to the next barge, which was swinging and bucking in the swell, you just hoped that you didn’t get a foot stuck between the two of them, because two twenty-five-foot barges colliding as a sandwich with your foot in the middle would do more than just leave a bruise. But Stinky ran and jumped and pirouetted just ahead of him and Vimes was quick enough to get the message, landing squarely on the next barge, and so, surprisingly, did Feeney, who actually laughed, although you had to be within a foot of him to hear that.

‘Well done, sir! We did this when I was a lad … every boy did … the big ones were best …’

Vimes had got his breath back after the first two jumps. According to what Feeney had told him, the Wonderful Fanny was a bulk carrier, big and slow, but it could take any load. There could be anything in these barges, he thought, but there was no smell of goblins yet and there were two barges still to go and weather that was trying to get even worse.

With that thought, there was Stinky again, who apparently could come and go without ever being seen either coming or going. And he still glowed faintly. Vimes had to crouch to speak to him. ‘Where are they, Stinky?’

The goblin farted, quite probably as a clown does, more for entertainment than relief. Clearly happy at the response, he cracked, ‘Number one barge! Easy to get to! Easy to feed!’

Vimes eyed the distance to the barge immediately behind the Fanny. Surely there had to be some kind of walkway? Some means of getting into the barges so that the crew could access the cargo? He turned again to Feeney, dripping with rain and illumined by another flash of lightning. ‘How many crew, do you think?’

Even this close, Feeney had to shout. ‘Probably two men, or a man and boy, down below in what they call the cowshed! Along with the engineer, and generally a loadmaster or cargo captain! Sometimes a cook, if the captain’s wife doesn’t want to do the job, although mostly they do, and then one or two lads learning the business and acting as general lookouts and wharf rats!’

‘Is that all? No guards?’

‘No, sir, this ain’t the high seas!’

Two barges crashed together, sending up a plume of water that succeeded in at last filling Vimes’s boots right to the top. There was no point in emptying them, but he managed to growl through the storm, ‘I’ve got news for you, lad. The water’s getting higher.’

He steeled himself for the jump on to the next erratic barge and wondered: even so, where are the people? Surely they don’t all want to die? He waited and jumped again as the barge presented itself, but fell back heavily just in time to see his sword cartwheeling roguishly into the stormy water. Cursing, and struggling to keep his balance, he awaited the next opportunity to narrowly survive and this time succeed. He leapt again and almost fell backwards between the crashing timbers but, balancing perilously, fell forward instead and fell on and right through a tarpaulin, into an indistinct face which cried, ‘Please! Please don’t kill me! I’m just a complicated chicken farmer! I’m not carrying any weapons! I don’t even like killing chickens!’