Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

The Watch lurked in Three Lamps Alley, which was about halfway down Short Street. There was a distant crackle of fireworks. Dwarfs let them off to drive away evil mine spirits. Trolls let them off because they tasted nice.

'Don't see why we can't let 'em fight it out amongst themselves and then arrest the losers,' said Corporal Nobbs. 'That's what we always used to do.'

'The Patrician gets really shirty about ethnic trouble,' said Sergeant Colon moodily. 'He gets really sarcastic about it.'

A thought struck him. He brightened up a little bit.

'Got any ideas, Carrot?' he said.

A second thought struck him. Carrot was a simple lad.

'Corporal Carrot?'

'Sarge?'

'Sort this lot out, will you?'

Carrot peered around the corner at the advancing walls of trolls and dwarfs. They'd already seen each other.

'Right you are, sergeant,' he said. 'Lance-Constables Cuddy and Detritus – don't salute! – you come with me.'

'You can't let him go out there!' said Angua. 'It's certain death!'

'Got a real sense o'duty, that boy,' said Corporal Nobbs. He took a minute length of dog-end from behind his ear and struck a match on the sole of his boot.

'Don't worry, miss,' said Colon. 'He—'

'Lance-Constable,' said Angua.

'What?'

'Lance-Constable,' she repeated. 'Not miss. Carrot says I don't have any sex while I'm on duty.'

To the background of Nobby's frantic coughing, Colon said, very quickly, 'What I mean is, lance-constable, young Carrot's got krisma. Bags of krisma.'

'Krisma?'

'Bags of it.'

The jolting had stopped. Chubby was really annoyed now. Really, really annoyed.

There was a rustling noise. A piece of sacking moved aside and there, staring at Chubby, was another male dragon.

It looked annoyed.

Chubby reacted in the only way he knew how.

Carrot stood in the middle of the street, arms folded, while the two new recruits stood just behind him, trying to keep an eye on both approaching marches at the same time.

Colon thought Carrot was simple. Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was.

Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

Carrot was not stupid. He was direct, and honest, and good-natured and honourable in all his dealings. In Ankh-Morpork this would normally have added up to 'stupid' in any case and would have given him the survival quotient of a jellyfish in a blast furnace, but there were a couple of other factors. One was a punch that even trolls had learned to respect. The other was that Carrot was genuinely, almost supernaturally, likeable. He got on well with people, even while arresting them. He had an exceptional memory for names.

For most of his young life he'd lived in a small dwarf colony where there were hardly any other people to know. Then, suddenly, he was in a huge city, and it was as if a talent had been waiting to unfold. And was still unfolding.

He waved cheerfully at the approaching dwarfs.