Jingo (25 page)

“Grapnels. You can’t beat grapnels. Catch ’em on the other ship and just pull ’em toward you.”

“And you’ve got grapnels?”

“Oh, yes. Saw some only today, in fact.”

“Good. Then—”

“As I recall,” Jenkins went on relentlessly, “it was when your Sergeant Detritus was chucking stuff over the side and he said, ‘What shall we do with dese bendy, hooky things, sir?’ and someone, can’t recall his name just at this minute, said, ‘They’re dead weight, throw them over.’”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“Oh, well, I didn’t like to,” said Jenkins. “You were doing so well.”

“Don’t mess me about, captain. Otherwise I’ll clap you in irons.”

“No, you ain’t going to do that, and I’ll tell you why. First, ’cos when Captain Carrot said, ‘These chains, sir, what shall I do with them?’ you said—”

“Now, you listen to—”

“—and, second, I don’t reckon you know anything about ships, oh deary me. We don’t clap people in irons, we put them in chains. Do you know how to splice the mainbrace? ’Cos I don’t. All that yohoho stuff’s for landlubbers, or it would be if we ever used words like landlubber. Do you know the difference between port and starboard? I don’t. I’ve never even drunk starboard. Shiver my timber!”

“Isn’t it ‘shiver my timbers’?”

“I’ve been ill.” Captain Jenkins spun the wheel. “Also, this is a frisky wind and me and my crew know how to pull the strings that make the big square canvas things work properly. If your men tried it you’d soon find out how far it is to land.”

“How far is it to land?”

“About thirty fathoms, hereabouts.”

The light was noticeably nearer.

“Bingeley-bingeley beep!”

“Good grief, what
now
?” said Vimes.

“Eight pee em. Er…Narrowly Escape Assassination by Klatchian Spy?”

Vimes went cold. “Where?” he said, looking around wildly.

“Corner of Brewer Street and Broadway,” said the little sing-song voice.

“But I’m not there!”

“What’s the point of having appointments, then? What’s the point of my making an effort? You
told
me you wanted to know what you
ought
to—”

“Listen, you don’t have an appointment for being assassinated!”

The demon went silent for a moment, and then said:

“You mean it should be on your To Do list?” Its voice was trembling.

“You mean like: ‘To Do: Die’?”

“Look, it’s no good taking it out on me just because you’re not on the right time line!”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Aha, I
knew
you didn’t read the manual! Chapter xvii-2(c) makes it very clear that sticking to one reality is vitally important, otherwise the Uncertainty Principle says—”

“Forget I asked, all right?”

Vimes glared at Jenkins and at the distant ship.

“We’ll do this my way, wherever the hell we are,” he said. He strode to the hold and pulled aside a hatchway. “Detritus?”

The Klatchian sailors struggled with the canvas while their captain screamed at them.

71-hour Ahmed didn’t scream. He just stood with his sword in his hand, watching.

The captain hurried over to him, trembling with fear and holding a length of rope.

“See,
wali
?” he said. “Someone cut it!”

“Who would do that?” said 71-hour Ahmed quietly.

“I do not know, but when I find him—”

“The dogs are almost on us,” said Ahmed. “You and your men will work faster.”

“Who could have done such a thing?” said the captain. “You were here, how could they—?”

His gaze flickered from the cut rope to the sword.

“Was there something you wished to say?” said Ahmed.

The captain hadn’t got where he was by being stupid. He spun round.

“Get that sail up right now, you festering sons of bitches!” he screamed.

“Good,” said 71-hour Ahmed.

Detritus’s crossbow was originally a three-man siege weapon, but he had removed the windlass as an unnecessary encumbrance. He cocked it by hand. Usually the mere sight of the troll pulling the string back with one finger was enough to make the strong-willed surrender.

He looked doubtfully at the distant light.

“It a million-to-one chance,” he said. “Got to be closer’n this.”

“Just hit it below the waterline so they can’t cut the rope,” said Vimes.

“Right. Right.”

“What’s the problem, sergeant?”

“We headin’ for Klatch, right?”

“Well, in that direction, yes.”

“Only…I’m gonna be really stoopid in Klatch, ’cos a der heat, right?”

“I hope we’re going to stop them before we get there, Detritus.”

“I ain’t keen on bein’ stoopid. I know people say, that troll Detritus, he ficker than a, than a—”

“—brick sandwich—” said Vimes, staring at the light.

“Right. Only I hearin’ it get really, really
hot
in der desert…”

The troll looked so mournful that Vimes felt moved to give him a cheerful slap on the back.

“Then let’s stop them now, eh?” he said, shaking his hand hurriedly to stop the stinging.

The other ship was so close they could see the sailors working feverishly on the deck. The mainsail billowed in the lamplight.

Detritus raised the bow.

A ball of blue-green light glowed on the tip of the arrow. The troll stared at it.

Then green fire ran down the masts and, when it hit the deck, burst into dozens of green balls that rolled, cracking and spitting, over the planks.

“Dey’re usin’ magic?” said Detritus. A green flame spluttered over his helmet.

“What is this, Jenkins?” said Vimes.

“It ain’t magic, it’s
worse’n
magic,” said the captain, hurrying forward. “All right, lads, get those sails down right now!”

“You leave them where they are!” shouted Vimes.

“You know what this
is
?”

“It dun’t even feel warm,” said Detritus, poking the flame on the crossbow.

“Don’t touch it! Don’t
touch
it! That’s St. Ungulant’s Fire, that is! It means we’re going to die in a dreadful storm!”

Vimes looked up. Clouds were racing across—No, they were
pouring into
the sky in great twisting billows, like ink streaming into water. Blue light flashed somewhere inside them. The ship lurched.

“Look, we got to lose some sail!” shouted Jenkins. “That’s the only way—”

“No one touches anything!” shouted Vimes. Green fire skimmed along the tops of the waves now. “Detritus, arrest any man who touches anything!”

“Right.”

“We want to go fast, after all,” Vimes said, above the hissing and the distant crackle of thunder.

Jenkins gawped at him as the ship lunged beneath them.

“You’re mad! Have you any idea what happens to a ship that tries to—You haven’t got
any
idea, have you? This ain’t normal weather! You have to ride it out careful! You can’t try to run ahead of it!”

Something slippery landed on Detritus’s head and bounced on to the deck, where it tried to slither away.

“And now it’s raining fish!” Jenkins moaned.

The clouds formed a yellow haze, lit almost constantly by the lightning. And it was warm. That was the strangest thing. The wind howled like a sack full of cats and the waves were turning into walls on either side of the ship, but the air felt like an oven.

“Look, even the Klatchians are reducing sail!” shouted Jenkins, in a shower of shrimp.

“Good. We’ll catch them up.”

“Mad!
Ouch
!”

Something hard rebounded from his hat, hit the rail and rolled to a stop by Vimes’s feet.

It was a brass knob.

“Oh,
no
,” moaned Jenkins, putting his arms over his head. “Now it’s bloody bedsteads again!”

The captain of the Klatchian ship was not an argumentative man when he was anywhere near 71-hour Ahmed. He just looked at the straining sails and calculated his chances of Paradise.

“Perhaps the dog who cut the sail loose did us a favor!” he shouted, above the roar of the wind.

Ahmed said nothing. He kept looking back. The occasional burst of electric storm light showed the ship behind, aflame with green light.

Then he looked at the cold fire streaming behind their own masts.

“Can you see that light on the edge of the flames?” he said.

“My lord?”

“Can you, man?”

“Er…no…”

“Of course you can’t! But can you see where the light isn’t?”

The captain stared at him and then looked up again in terrified obedience. And there
was
somewhere where the light wasn’t. As the fizzing green tongues waved in the wind they seemed to be edged with…blackness, perhaps, or a moving hole in space.

“That’s octarine!” shouted Ahmed, as another wave sloshed over the deck. “Only wizards can see it! There’s magic in these storms! That’s why the weather is so bad!”

The ship screamed in every joint as it hit the waves again.

“We’re coming right out of the water!” wept Jenkins. “We’re just going from crest to crest!”

“Good! It won’t be so bumpy!” shouted Vimes. “We should pick up speed again now we’ve got those bedsteads over the side! Does it often rain bedsteads out here?”

“What do
you
think?”

“I’m not a nautical man!”

“No, rains of bedsteads are
not
an everyday occurrence! Nor are coal scuttles!” Jenkins added, as something black crashed off a rail and over the side. “We just get the normal stuff, you know! Rain! Snow! Sleet! Fish!”

Another squall blew across the bounding boat and the deck was suddenly covered with flashing silver.

“Back to fish!” shouted Vimes. “That’s better, surely?”

“No! It’s worse!”

“Why!”

Jenkins held up a tin.

“These are sardines!”

The ship thumped into another wave, groaned, and took flight again.

The cold green fire was everywhere. Every nail of the deck sprouted its flame, every rope and ladder had its green outline.

And the feeling crept over Vimes that it was holding the ship together. He wasn’t at all sure that it was just light. It moved too purposefully. It crackled, but it didn’t sting. It looked as though it was having fun—

The ship landed. Water washed over Vimes.

“Captain Jenkins!”

“Yes?”

“Why’re we playing with this wheel? It’s not as if the rudder’s in the water!”

They let go. The spokes blurred for a moment, and then stopped as the fire wrapped itself around them.

Then it rained cake.

The Watch had tried to make themselves comfortable in the hold, but there were difficulties. There wasn’t any area of floor which at some point in every ten seconds wasn’t an area of wall.

Nevertheless, someone was snoring.

“How can anyone sleep in
this
?” said Reg Shoe.

“Captain Carrot can,” said Cheery. She was hacking at something with her ax.

Carrot had wedged himself into a corner. Occasionally he mumbled something, and shifted position.

“Like a baby. Beats me how he’s managing it,” said Reg Shoe. “Of course, any minute this thing is going to fall apart.”

“Yes, but dat shouldn’t worry you, should it?” said Detritus. “On account of you bein’ dead already?”

“So? I end up at the bottom of the sea knee-deep in whale droppings? And it’ll be a long walk home in the dark. Not to mention the problems if a shark tries to eat me.”

“I shall fear not. According to the Testament of Mezerek, the fisherman Nonpo spent four days in the belly of a giant fish,” said Constable Visit.

The thunder seemed particularly loud in the silence.

“Washpot, are we talking miracles here?” said Reg eventually. “Or just a very slow digestive process?”

“You would be better employed considering the state of your immortal soul than making jokes,” said Constable Visit severely.

“It’s the state of my immortal body that’s worrying me,” said Reg.

“I have a leaflet here which will bring you considerable—” Visit began.

“Washpot, is it big enough to be folded into a boat that’ll save us all?”

Constable Visit pounced on the opening. “Aha, yes, metaphorically it
is
—”

“Hasn’t this ship
got
a lifeboat?” said Cheery hurriedly. “I’m sure I saw one when we came on.”

“Yeah…lifeboat,” said Detritus.

“Anyone want a sardine?” said Cheery. “I’ve managed to get a tin open.”

“Lifeboat,” Detritus repeated. He sounded like someone exploring an unpleasant truth. “Like…a big, heavy thing which would’ve slowed us down…?”

“Yes, I saw it, I know I did,” said Reg.

“Yeah…dere was one,” said Detritus. “Dat was a lifeboat, was it?”

“At the very least we ought to get somewhere sheltered and drop the anchor.”

“Yeah…anchor…” mused Detritus. “Dat’s a big thing kinda hooks on, right?”

“Of course.”

“Kinda heavy thing?”

“Obviously!”

“Right. An’…er…if it was dropped a long time ago, on accounta bein’ heavy, dat wouldn’t do us much good now?”

“Hardly.” Reg Shoe glared through the hatchway. The sky was a dirty yellow blanket, criss-crossed with fire. Thunder boomed continuously.

“I wonder how far the barometer’s sunk?” he said.

“All der way,” said Detritus gloomily. “Trust me on dis.”

It was in the nature of a D’reg to open doors carefully. There was generally an enemy on the other side. Sooner or later.

He saw the collar lying on the floor, right by a little fountain of water trickling from the hull, and swore under his breath.

Ahmed waited just a moment, and then pushed the door back quickly. It rattled against the wall.

“I don’t intend to harm you,” he said to the gloom of the bilges. “If that was my intention, by now you’d—”

She wished she’d used the wolf. There would have been no problem with the wolf. That
was
the problem. She’d easily win, but then she’d be nervy and frightened. A human could stay on top of that. A wolf might not. She’d do the wrong things, panicky things,
animal
things.

She pushed him hard as she dropped down from above the door, somersaulted backward, slammed the door and turned the key.

The sword came through the planking like a hot knife through runny lard.

There was a gasp beside her. She spun round and saw two men holding a net. They would have thrown it over the wolf. What they hadn’t been expecting was a naked woman. The sudden appearance of a naked woman always causes a rethink of anyone’s immediate plans.

She kicked them both hard and ran in the opposite direction, opened the first door at random and slammed it behind her.

It was the cabin with the dogs in it. They sprang to their feet, opened their mouths—and slunk down again. A werewolf can have considerable power over other animals, whatever shape she’s in, although it is largely the power to make them cringe and try to look inedible.

She hurried past them and pulled at one of the hangings over the bunk.

The man in the bunk opened his eyes. He was a Klatchian, but pale with weakness and pain. There were dark rings under his eyes.

“Ah,” he said, “it would appear that I have died and gone to Paradise. Are you a
houri
?”

“I don’t have to take that kind of language, thank you,” said Angua, ripping the silk in two with a practiced hand.

She was aware that she had a slight advantage over male werewolves in that naked women caused fewer complaints, although the downside was that they got some pressing invitations. Some kind of covering was essential, for modesty and the prevention of inconvenient bouncing, which was why fashioning impromptu clothes out of anything to hand was a lesser-known werewolf skill.

Angua stopped. Of course, to the unpracticed eye all Klatchians looked alike, but then to a werewolf all humans looked alike: they looked appetizing. She’d learned to discern.

“Are you Prince Khufurah?”

“I am. And you are…?”

The door was kicked open. Angua leapt toward the window and flung aside the bar restraining the shutters. Water funneled into the cabin, drenching her, but she managed to scramble up and out.

“Just passing through?” the Prince murmured.

71-hour Ahmed strode to the window and looked out. Green-blue waves edged with fire fought outside as the ship heaved. No one could stay afloat in a sea like that.

He turned and looked along the hull to where Angua was clinging to a trailing line.

She saw him wink at her. Then he turned away and she heard him say, “She must have drowned. Back to your posts!”

Presently, up on the deck, a hatch closed.

The sun rose in a cloudless sky.

A watcher, if such had been out here, would have noticed a slight difference in the way the swells were moving on this tiny patch of sea.

They might even have wondered about the piece of bent piping which turned with a faint squeaking noise.

Had they been able to place an ear to it, they would have heard the following:

“—idea while I was dozing off. Piece of pipe, two angled mirrors—the solution to all our steering and air problems!”

“Fascinating. A Seeing-Things-Pipe-You-Can-Breathe-Down.”

“My goodness, how did you know it was called that, my lord?”

“A lucky guess.”

“’ere, someone’s re-designed my pedaling seat, it’s
comfortable
—”

“Ah, yes, corporal, I took some measurements while you were asleep and rebuilt it for a better anatomical configu—”

“You took measurements?”

“Oh, yes, I—”

“What, of my…saddlery regions?”

“Oh, please don’t be concerned, anatomy is something of a passion with me—”

“Is it? Is it? Well, you can stop being passionate about mine for a start—”

“Here, I can see an island of some sort!”

The pipe squeaked around.

“Ah, Leshp. And I see people. To your pedals, gentlemen. Let us explore the ocean’s bottom…”

“I expect we shall, with
him
steering—”

“Shut up, Nobby.”

The pipe slid down into the waves. There was a little flurry of bubbles and a damp argument about whose job it should have been to put the cork in, and then the patch of sea that had been empty was, somehow, a little bit emptier still.

There weren’t any fish.

At a time like this Solid Jackson would have even been prepared to eat Curious Squid.

But the sea was empty. And it smelled wrong. It fizzed gently. Solid could see little bubbles breaking on the surface, which burst with a smell of sulfur and rotting eggs. He guessed that the rise of the land must have stirred up a lot of mud. It was bad enough at the bottom of a pond, all those frogs and bugs and things, and this was the sea—

He tried hard to reverse that train of thought, but it kept on rising from the depths like a…like a…

Why were there no fish? Oh, there’d been the storm last night, but generally you got better fishing in these parts after a storm because it…stirred…up…

The raft rocked.

He was beginning to think it might be a good idea to go home, but that’d mean leaving the land to the Klatchians, and that’d happen over his dead body.

The treacherous internal voice said: Funnily enough, they never found Mr. Hong’s body. Not most of the important bits, anyway.

“I think, think, I think we’ll be getting back now,” he said to his son.

“Oh, Dad,” said Les. “Another dinner of limpets and seaweed?”

“Nothing wrong with seaweed,” said Jackson. “It’s full of nourishing…seaweed. ’s got iron in it. Good for you, iron.”

“Why don’t we boil an anchor, then?”

“None of your lip, son.”

“The Klatchians have got bread,” said Les. “They brought flour with them. And they’ve got firewood.” This was a sore point with Jackson. Efforts to make seaweed combust had not been successful.

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t like their bread,” said Jackson. “It’s all flat and got no proper crust—”

A breeze blew the scent of baking over the water. It carried a hint of spices.

“They’re baking bread! On
our
property!”

“Well, they say it’s
their
—”

Jackson grabbed the piece of broken plank he used as an oar and began to scull furiously toward the shore. The fact that this only made the raft go round in circles added to his fury.

“They bloody move in right next to us and all we get is the stink of foreign food—”

“Why’s your mouth watering, Dad?”

“And how come they’ve got wood, may I ask?”

“I think the current takes the driftwood to their side of the island, Dad—”

“See? They’re stealing our driftwood! Our damn driftwood! Hah! Well, we’ll—”

“But I thought we agreed that the bit over
there
was theirs, and—”

Jackson had finally remembered how to propel a raft with one oar.

“That wasn’t an agreement,” he said, creating foam as the oar thrashed back and forth, “that was just an…an arrangement. It’s not as if they
created
the driftwood. It just turned up. Accident of geography. It is a natural resource, right? It don’t
belong
to anyone—”

The raft hit something which made a metallic sound. But they were still a hundred yards from the rocks.

Something else, long and bent at the end, rose up with a creaking noise. It twisted around until it pointed at Jackson.

“Excuse me,” it said, in a tinny yet polite voice, “but this is Leshp, isn’t it?”

Jackson made a sound in his throat.

“Only,” the thing went on, “the water’s a little cloudy and I thought we might have been going the wrong way for the last twenty minutes.”

“Leshp!” squeaked Jackson, in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.

“Ah, good. Thank you so much. Good day to you.”

The appendage sank slowly into the sea again. The last sounds from it, erupting on the surface in a cloud of bubbles, were, “…don’t forget to put the cork in—
You’ve forgot to put the cor
—”

The bubbles stopped.

After a while Les said, “Dad, what was—?”

“It wasn’t anything!” snapped his father. “That sort of thing doesn’t happen!”

The raft shot forward. You could have waterski’d behind it.

Another important thing about the Boat, thought Sergeant Colon gloomily as they slipped back into a blue twilight, was that you couldn’t bale out the bilges. It was the bilges.