Men at Arms

All right, no-one panic, just stop what you're doing, stop what you're doing, please. I'm Corporal Nobbs, Ankh-Morpork City Ordnance Inspection City Audit—' The piece of paper was waved in front of the man's eyes at vision-blurring speed, and Nobby's voice faltered a bit as he contemplated the end of the sentence, '—Bureau . . . Special . . . Audit . . . Inspection. How many people work here?'

'Just me—'

Nobby pointed at the trolls.

'What about them?'

The man spat on the floor.

'Oh, I thought you said people.'

Carrot stuck out his hand automatically and it slammed against Detritus' breastplate.

'OK,' said Nobby, 'let's see what we've got here . . .' He walked fast along the racks, so that everyone else had to run to keep up. 'What's this?'

'Er—'

'Don't know, eh?'

'Sure . . . it's . . . it's . . .'

'A triple-stringed 2,000lb carriage-mounted siege crossbow with the double-action windlass?'

'Right.'

'Isn't this a Klatchian reinforced crossbow with the goat-leg cocking mechanism and the underhaft bayonet?'

'Er . . . yeah?'

Nobby gave it a cursory examination, and then tossed it aside.

The rest of the Night Watch looked on in astonishment. Nobby had never been known to wield any weapon beyond a knife.

'Have you got one of those Hershebian twelve-shot bows with the gravity feed?' he snapped.

'Eh? What you see is what we got, mister.'

Nobby pulled a hunting crossbow from its rack. His skinny arms twanged as he hauled on the cocking lever.

'Sold the bolts for this thing?'

'They're right there!'

Nobby selected one from the shelf and dropped it into its slot. Then he sighted along the shaft. He turned.

'I like this inventory,' said Nobby. 'We'll take it all.'

The man looked down the sights at Nobby's eye and, to Angua's horrified admiration, didn't faint.

'That little bow don't scare me,' he said.

'This little bow scare you?' said Nobby. 'No. Right. This is a little bow. A little bow like this wouldn't scare a man like you, because it's such a little bow. It'd need a bigger bow than this to scare a man like you.'

Angua would have given a month's pay to see the quartermaster's face from the front. She'd watched as Detritus had lifted down the siege bow, cocked it with one hand and a barely audible grunt, and stepped forward. Now she could imagine the eyeballs swivelling as the coldness of the metal penetrated the back of the armourer's fleshy red neck.

'Now, the one behind you, that's a big bow,' said Nobby.

It wasn't as if the six-foot iron arrow was sharp. It was supposed to smash through doorways, not do surgery.

'Can I pull the trigger yet?' Detritus rumbled, into the man's ear.

'You wouldn't dare fire that thing in here! That's a siege weapon! It'd go right through the wall!'

'Eventually,' said Nobby.

'What this bit for?' said Detritus.

'Now, look—'

'I hope you keep that thing maintained,' said Nobby. 'Them things were a bugger for metal fatigue. Especially on the safety catch.'

'What are a safety catch?' said Detritus.

Everything went quiet.

Carrot found his voice, a long way off.

'Corporal Nobbs?'

'Yessir?'

'I'll take over from this point, if you don't mind.'

He gently pushed the siege bow away, but Detritus hadn't liked the crack about people and it kept swinging back again.

'Now,' said Carrot, 'I don't like this element of coercion. We're not here to bully this poor man. He's a city employee, just like us. It's very wrong of you to put him in fear. Why not just ask?'

'Sorry, sir,' said Nobby.

Carrot patted the armourer on the shoulder.

'May we take some weapons?' he said.

'What?'

'Some weapons? For official purposes?'

The armourer looked unable to cope with this.

'You mean I got a choice?' he said.

'Why, certainly. We practise policing by consent in Ankh-Morpork. If you feel unable to agree to our request, you only have to say the word.'

There was a faint bong as the tip of the iron arrow once again bounced on the back of the armourer's skull. He sought in vain for something to say, because the only word he could think of right now was 'Fire!'

'Uh,' he said. 'Uh. Yeah. Right. Sure. Take what you want.'

'Fine, fine. And Sergeant Colon will give you a receipt, adding of course that you release the weapons of your own free will.'

'My own free will?'

'You have absolute choice in the matter, of course.'

The man's face screwed up in the effort of desperate cogitation.

'I reckon . . .'

'Yes?'

'I reckon it's OK for you to take 'em. Take 'em right away.'

'Good man. Do you have a trolley?'

'And do you happen to know what it is they say about dwarfs?' said Cuddy.

It crept over Angua once again that Carrot had no irony in his soul. He meant every word. If the man had really held out, Carrot would probably have given in. Of course, there was a bit of a gap between probably and certainly.

Nobby was down the end of the row, occasionally squeaking with delight as he found an interesting war hammer or an especially evil-looking glaive. He was trying to hold everything, all at once.

Then he dropped the lot and ran forward.

'Oh, wow! A Klatchian fire engine! This is more my meteor!'

They heard him rummaging around in the gloom. He emerged pushing a sort of bin on small squeaky wheels. It had various handles and fat leathery bags, and a nozzle at the front. It looked like a very large kettle.

'The leather's been kept greased, too!'

'What is it?' said Carrot.

'And there's oil in the reservoir!' Nobby pumped a handle energetically. 'Last I heard, this thing had been banned in eight countries and three religions said they'd excommunicate any soldiers found using it![25] Anyone got a light?'

'Here,' said Carrot, 'but what's—'

'Watch!'

Nobby lit a match, applied it to the tube at the front of the device, and pulled a lever.

They put out the flames eventually.

'Needs a bit of adjustment,' said Nobby, through his mask of soot.

'No,' said Carrot. For the rest of his life he'd remember the jet of fire scorching his face en route to the opposite wall.

'But it's—'

'No. It's too dangerous.'

'It's meant to be—'

'I mean it could hurt people.'

'Ah,' said Nobby, 'right. You should have said. We're after weapons that don't hurt people, right?'

'Corporal Nobbs?' said Sergeant Colon, who'd been even closer to the flame than Carrot.

'Yes, sarge?'

'You heard Corporal Carrot. No heathen weapons. Anyway, how come you know so much about all this stuff?'

'Milit'ry service.'

'Really, Nobby?' said Carrot.

'Had a special job, sir. Very responsible.'

'And what was that?'

'Quartermaster, sir,' said Nobby, saluting smartly.

'You were a quartermaster?' said Carrot. 'In whose army?'

'Duke of Pseudopolis, sir.'

'But Pseudopolis always lost its wars!'

'Ah . . . well . . .'

'Who did you sell the weapons to?'

'That's a slander, that is! They just used to spend a lot of time away for polishing and sharpening.'

'Nobby, this is Carrot talking to you. How much time, approximately?'

'Approximately? Oh. About a hundred per cent, if we're talking approximately, sir.'

'Nobby?'

'Sir?'

'You don't have to call me sir.'

'Yessir.'

In the end, Cuddy remained faithful to his axe, but added a couple more as an afterthought; Sergeant Colon chose a pike because the thing about a pike, the important thing, was that everything happened at the other end of it, i.e., a long way off; Lance-Constable Angua selected, without much enthusiasm, a short sword, and Corporal Nobbs—

—Corporal Nobbs was a kind of mechanical porcu- pine of blades, bows, points and knobbly things on the end of chains.

'You sure, Nobby?' said Carrot. 'There's nothing you want to leave?'

'It's so hard to choose, sir.'

Detritus was hanging on to his huge bow.

'That all you're taking, Detritus?'

'No sir! Taking Hint and Morraine, sir!'

The two trolls who had been working in the armoury had formed up behind Detritus.

'Swore 'em in, sir,' said Detritus. 'Used troll oath.'

Flint saluted amateurishly.

'He said he'd kick our goohuloog heads in if we didn't join up and do what we're told, sir,' he said.

'Very old troll oath,' said Detritus. 'Very famous, very traditional.'

'One of 'em could carry the Klatchian fire engine—' Nobby began hopefully.

'No, Nobby. Well . . . welcome to the Watch, men.'

'Corporal Carrot?'

'Yes, Cuddy?'

'It's not fair. They're trolls.'

'We need every man we can get, Cuddy.'

Carrot stood back. 'Now, we don't want people to think we're looking for trouble,' he said.

'Oh, dressed like this, sir, we won't have to look for trouble,' said Sergeant Colon despondently.

'Question, sir?' said Angua.

'Yes, Lance-Constable Angua?'

'Who's the enemy?'

'Looking like this, we won't have any problem finding enemies,' said Sergeant Colon.

'We're not looking for enemies, we're looking for information,' said Carrot. 'The best weapon we can use right now is the truth, and to start with, we're going to the Fools' Guild to find out why Brother Beano stole the gonne.'

'Did he steal the gonne?'

'I think he may have, yes.'

'But he died before the gonne was stolen!' said Colon.

'Yes,' said Carrot. 'I know that.'

'Now that,' said Colon, 'is what I calls an alibi.'

The squad formed up and, after a brief discussion among the trolls as to which was their left foot and which was their right, marched away. Nobby kept looking back longingly to the fire machine.

Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

Ten minutes later they'd pushed through the crowds and were outside the Guilds.

'See?' Carrot said.

'They back on to each other,' said Nobby. 'So what? There's still a wall between them.'

'I'm not so sure,' said Carrot. 'We'll jolly well find out.'

'Have we got time?' said Angua, 'I thought we were going to see the Day Watch.'

'There's something I must find out first,' said Carrot. 'The Fools haven't told me the truth.'-

'Hang on a minute, hang on a minute,' said Sergeant Colon. 'This is going altogether just a bit too far by half. Look, I don't want us to kill anyone, right? I happen to be sergeant around here, if anyone's interested. Understand, Carrot? Nobby? No shooting or swordplay. It's bad enough barging into Guild property, but we'll get into really serious trouble if we shoot anyone. Lord Vetinari won't stop at sarcasm. He might use' – Colon swallowed – 'irony. So that's an order. What do you want to do, anyway?'

'I just want people to tell me things,' said Carrot.

'Well, if they don't, you're not to hurt them,' said Colon. 'Look, you can ask questions, fair enough. But if Dr Whiteface starts getting difficult, we're to come away, right? Clowns give me the creeps. And he's worst of all. If he won't answer, we're to leave peacefully and, oh, I don't know, think of something else. That's an order, like I said. Are you clear about this? It's an order.'

'If he won't answer my questions,' said Carrot, 'I'm to leave peacefully. Right.'

'So long as that's understood.'

Carrot knocked on the Fools' door, reached up, caught the custard pie as it emerged from the slot and rammed it back hard. Then he kicked the door so that it swung inwards a few inches.

Someone behind it said 'Ow.'

The door opened a bit further to reveal a small clown covered in whitewash and custard.