Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

DID YOU NOTICE IT?

'I can't say I did.'

OH.

'Sorry.'

I'VE BEEN TOLD I SHOULD TRY TO MAKE THE OCCASION A LITTLE MORE ENJOYABLE.

'Bjorn again.'

YES.

'I'll think about it?

THANK YOU.

'Hright,' said Sergeant .Colon, 'this, men, is your truncheon, also nomenclatured your night stick or baton of office.' He paused while he tried to remember his army days, and brightened up.

'Hand you will look after hit,' he shouted. 'You will eat with hit, you will sleep with hit, you—'

' 'Scuse me.'

'Who said that?'

'Down here. It's me, Lance-Constable Cuddy.'

'Yes, pilgrim?'

'How do we eat with it, sergeant?'

Sergeant Colon's wound-up machismo wound down. He was suspicious of Lance-Constable Cuddy. He strongly suspected Lance-Constable Cuddy was a trouble-maker.

'What?'

'Well, do we use it as a knife or a fork or cut in half for chopsticks or what?'

'What are you talking about?'

'Excuse me, sergeant?'

'What is it, Lance-Constable Angua?'

'How exactly do we sleep with it, sir?'

'Well, I . . . I meant . . . Corporal Nobbs, stop that sniggering right now!' Colon adjusted his breastplate and decided to strike out in a new .direction.

'Now, hwat we have 'ere is a puppet, mommet or heffigy' – indicating a vaguely humanoid shape made of leather and stuffed with straw, mounted on a stake -'called by the hnickname of Harthur, weapons training, for the use hof. Forward, Lance-Constable Angua. Tell me, Lance-Constable, do you think you could kill a man?'

'How long will I have?'

There was a pause while they picked up Corporal Nobbs and patted him on the back until he settled down.

'Very well,' said Sergeant Colon, 'what you must do now is take your truncheon like so, and on the command one, proceed smartly to Harthur and on the command two, tap him smartly upon the bonce. Hwun . . . two . . .'

The truncheon bounced off Arthur's helmet.

'Very good, only one thing wrong. Anyone tell me what it was?'