Jingo (Discworld 21)

'Pretty close, I should say. Look, if I can measure the wind speed–'

'Then Leshp should be in this vicinity?'

'Oh, yes, I should–'

'Good. Unhitch us from his apparently stricken ship while we still have the cover of darkness and in the morning I wish to see this troublesome land. In the meantime, I suggest that everyone gets some sleep.' Sergeant Colon did not get a lot of sleep. This was partly because he was woken up several times by sawing and banging coming from the front of the Boat, and partly because water kept dripping on his head, but mainly because the lull in activity was causing him to consider his position. Sometimes when he woke up he saw the Patrician hunched over Leonard's drawings, a gaunt silhouette in the light of the candle – reading, making notes... He was in the immediate company of a man even the Assassins' Guild was frightened of, another man who would stay up all night in order to invent an alarm clock to wake him up in the morning, and a man who had never knowingly changed his underwear. And he was at sea. He tried to look on the bright side. What was the main reason why he hated boats? The fact that they sank, right? But this one had the sinking built in right from the start And you didn't have to watch the waves going up and down, because they were already above you. All this was logical. It just wasn't very comforting. When he awoke at one point there were faint voices coming from the other end of the vessel. '––don't quite understand, my lord. Why them?'

'They do what they're told, they tend to believe the last thing they heard, they're not bright enough to ask questions, and they have that certain unshakable loyalty available to those unencumbered by too much intelligence.'

'I suppose so, my lord.'

'Such men are valuable, believe me.' Sergeant Colon turned over and tried to make himself comfortable. Clad I'm not like those poor bastards, he thought as he drifted off to sleep on the bosom of the deep. I'm a man with special qualities.

Vimes shook his head. The stem light of the Klatchian ship was barely visible in the gloom. 'Are we gaining on them?' he said. Captain Jenkins nodded. 'We might be. There's a lot of sea between us.'

'And has all excess weight been thrown overboard?'

'Yes! What do you want me to do, shave my beard off?' Carrot's face appeared over the edge of the hold, 'All the lads are bedded down, sir.'

'Right.'

'I'll turn in for a few hours too, sir, if it's all right with you.'

'Sorry, captain?'

'I'll get my head down, sir.'

'But. .. but–' Vimes waved vaguely at the darkening horizon, I we're in hot pursuit of your girlfriend! Among other things,' he added. 'Yes, sir.'

'So aren't you... you mean you can... you want to... captain, you intend to go and have a bit of a nap?'

'To be fresh for when we catch up with them. Yes, sir. If I spend the whole night staring out there worrying then I'll probably be a bit useless When we catch up with them, sir.' It made sense. It really did make sense. Of course it made sense. Vimes could see the sense all over it. Carrot had actually sat down and thought sensibly about things. 'You'll be able to get to sleep, will you?' he said weakly. 'Oh, yes. I owe it to Angua.'

'Oh. Well... goodnight, then.' Carrot disappeared into the hold again. 'Good heavens,' said Jenkins. 'Is he real?'

'Yes,' said Vimes. 'I mean... would you go and bang your ear if he was chasing your lady in that ship?' Vimes said nothing. Jenkins sniggered. 'Mind you, if it was Lady Sybil, she'd be a bit lower on the waterline–'

'You just watch the... the sea. Don't run into any damn whales or anything,' said Vimes, and strode up to the sharp end. Carrot, he thought. If you didn't know him, you wouldn't believe it... 'They're slowing, Mr Vimes!' Jenkins called out. 'What?'

'I reckon they're slowing down, I said!'

'Good.'

'So what're you going to do when we catch them?'

'Er. ..'Vimes hadnt given this a lot of thought. But he recalled a very bad woodcut he'd once seen in a book about pirates. 'We'll swing across on to them with our cutlasses in our teeth?' he said. 'Really?' said Jenkins. 'That's good. I haven't seen that done in years. Only ever seen it done once, in fact.'

'Oh, yes?'

'Yes, this lad'd seen the idea in a book and he swung across into the other ship's rigging with his cutlass clenched, as you say, between his teeth.'

'Yes?'

'Topless Harry, we wrote on his coffin.'

'Oh.'

'I don't know if you've ever seen a soft–boiled egg after you've picked up your knife and sli–'