'Oh, yessir. Couple of good lads, sir, and but for the grey skin hangin' off 'em you'd swear they hadn't been buried five minutes.'
'Swear them in tomorrow.'
'Right, sir. Good idea. And of course it's a great saving not having to include them in the pension plan.'
They can patrol up on Kings Down. After all, they're only human.'
'Right, sir.' When Sam is in these moods, Colon thought, you agree with everything. 'You're really getting the hang of this affirmative action stuff, eh sir?'
'Right now I'd swear in a gorgon!'
'There's always Mr Bleakley, sir, he's getting fed up with working in the kosher butcher's and - '
'But no vampires. Never any vampires. Now let's get a move on, Fred.'
Nobby Nobbs ought to have known. That's what he told himself as he scuttled through the streets. All that stuff about kings and stuff- they'd wanted him to ...
It was a terrible thought...
Volunteer.
Nobby had spent a lifetime in one uniform or another. And one of the most basic lessons he'd learned was that men with red faces and plummy voices never ever gave cushy numbers to the likes of Nobby. They'd ask for volunteers to do something 'big and clean' and you'd end up scrubbing some damn great drawbridge; they'd say, 'Anyone here like good food?' and you'd be peeling potatoes for a week. You never ever volunteered. Not even if a sergeant stood there and said, 'We need someone to drink alcohol, bottles of, and make love, passionate, to women, for the use of.' There was always a snag. If a choir of angels asked for volunteers for Paradise to step forward, Nobby knew enough to take one smart pace to the rear.
When the call came for Corporal Nobbs, it would not find him wanting. It would not find him at all.
Nobby avoided a herd of pigs in the middle of the street.
Even Mr Vimes never expected him to volunteer. He respected Nobby's pride.
Nobby's head ached. It must've been the quail's eggs, he was sure. They couldn't be healthy birds to lay titchy eggs like that.
He sidled past a cow that had got its head stuck in someone's window.
Nobby as king? Oh, yes. No one ever gave a Nobbs anything except maybe a skin disease or sixty lashes. It was a dog-eat-Nobbs world, right enough. If there were to be a world competition for losers, a Nobbs would come firs - last.
He stopped running and went to earth in a doorway. In its welcome shadows he extracted a very short cigarette end from behind his ear and lit it.
Now that he felt safe enough to think about more than flight he wondered about all the animals that seemed to be on the streets. Unlike the family tree that had borne Fred Colon as its fruit, the creeping vine of the Nobbses had flourished only within city walls. Nobby was vaguely aware of animals as being food in a primary stage and left it at that. But he was pretty sure they weren't supposed to be wandering around untidily like this.
Gangs of men were trying to round them up. Since they were tired and working at cross-purposes, and the animals were hungry and bewildered, all that was happening was that the streets were getting a lot muddier.
Nobby became aware that he was not alone in the doorway.
He looked down.
Also lurking in the shadows was a goat. It was unkempt and smelly, but it turned its head and gave Nobby the most knowing look he'd ever seen on the face of an animal. Unexpectedly, and most uncharacteristically, Nobby was struck by a surge of fellow-rfeeling.
He pinched out the end of his cigarette and passed it down to the goat, which ate it.
'You and me both,' said Nobby.
Miscellaneous livestock scattered madly as Carrot, Angua and Cheri made their way down the Shambles. They especially tried to keep away from Angua. It seemed to Cheri that an invisible barrier was advancing in front of them. Some animals tried to climb walls or scattered madly into side alleys.
'Why are they so scared?' said Cheri.
'Can't imagine,' said Angua.
A few maddened sheep ran away from them as they walked around the candle-factory. Light from its high windows indicated that candlemaking continued all night.