Night Watch (Discworld 29)

'There's two now, and since my lad here is in training he might hit you anywhere,' said Vimes. 'Drop your swords on the floor! Get out of the door! Run away! Do it now! Don't come back!' There was a moment of hesitation, just a moment, and then the men ran for it. 'Fred will watch our backs,' said Vimes. 'Come on . . .' All the Watch Houses were pretty much the same. Stone steps led down to the cellars. Vimes hurried down them, swung open a heavy door- And stopped. Cells never smelled that good at the best of times. At the best of times, even at Treacle Mine Road, hygiene consisted of a bucket per cell and as much slopping-out as Snouty felt inclined to do. But, at the worst of times, the cells below Treacle Mine Road never smelled of blood. The beast stirred. In this room there was a big wooden chair. In this room there was, by the chair, a rack. The chair was bolted to the floor. It had wide leather straps. The rack held clubs and hammers. In this room, that was all the furnishings. The floor was dark and sticky. Down the length of it, a gully ran to a drain. Boards had been nailed over the tiny window at street level. This wasn't a place where light was welcomed. And all the walls, and even the ceiling, were padded heavily with sacks stuffed with straw. Sacks had even been nailed to the door. This was a very thorough cell. Not even sound was meant to escape. A couple of torches did nothing at all for the darkness except make it dirty. Behind him, Vimes heard Nancyball throw up. In a strange kind of dream, he walked across the floor and bent down to pick up something that gleamed in the torchlight. It was a tooth. He stood up again. A closed wooden door led off on one side of the cellar; on the other, a wider tunnel almost certainly led to the cells. Vimes took a torch out of its holder, handed it to Sam and pointed along the tunnel- There were footsteps accompanied by a jingle of keys heading towards the door, and a light growing brighter underneath it. The beast tensed... Vimes dragged the largest club out of the rack and stepped swiftly to the wall beside the door. Someone was coming, someone who knew about this room, someone who called themselves a copper . . .

Getting a firm two-handed grip, Vimes raised the club- And looked across the stinking room, and saw young Sam watching him, young Sam with his bright shiny badge and face full of ... strangeness. Vimes lowered the club, leaned it delicately against the wall, and pulled the leather cosh from his pocket. Shackled, not quite understanding, the beast was dragged back into the night... A man stepped through the door, whistling under his breath, took a few steps into the room, saw young Sam, opened his mouth and then fell fast asleep. He was a big man, and hit the cobbles heavily. He had a leather hood over his head, and was naked to the waist. A big ring of keys hung from his belt. Vimes darted into the corridor behind the door, ran around a corner, burst into a small, brightly lit room, and grabbed a man he found in there. This one was a lot smaller, and suppressed a scream as Vimes dragged him up out of his chair. 'And what does daddy do at work all day, mister?' Vimes roared. The little man was suddenly clairvoyant. One look at Vimes's eyes told him how short his future might be. I'm just a clerk! A clerk! I just write things down!' he protested. He held up a pen by way of desperate demonstration. Vimes looked at the desk. There were compasses there, and other geometer's tools, symbols of Swing's insane sanity. There were books, and folders stuffed with paperwork. And there was a yard-long steel ruler. He grabbed it in his spare hand and slammed it on the desktop. The heavy steel made a satisfying noise. 'And?' he said, his face a few inches from the struggling man. 'And I measure people! It's all in the captain's book! I just measure people! I don't do anything wrong! I'm not a bad man!' Again the ruler slammed into the desk. But this time Vimes had twisted it, and the steel edge chopped into the wood. 'Want me to cut you down to size, mister?' The little man's eyes rolled. 'Please!'

'Is there another way out of here?' Vimes slapped the rule down on the desk. The flicker of eyes was enough. Vimes saw a doorway in the wall, almost lost in the wooden panelling. 'Good. Where does it come out?'

'Er-' Now Vimes was nose to nose with the man who, in police parlance, was helping him with his inquiries. 'You're all alone here,' he said. 'You have no friends here. You sat and took notes for a torturer, a bloody torturer! And I see a desk, and it's got a desk drawer, and if you ever, ever want to hold a pen again you'll tell me everything I want to know-'

'Warehouse!' the man gasped. 'Next door!'

'Right, sir. Thank you, sir. You've been very helpful,' said Vimes, lowering the limp body to the floor. 'Now, sir, I'm just handcuffing you to this desk for a moment, sir, for your protection.'

'Who . . . who from?'

'Me. I'll kill you if you try to run away, sir.' Vimes hurried back to the main chamber. The torturer was still out cold. Vimes hauled him up into the chair, with great effort, and pulled off his hood, and recognized the face. The face, yes, but not the person. That is, it was the kind of face you saw a lot of in Ankh-Morpork: big, bruised, and belonging to someone who'd never quite learned that hitting people long after they'd lost consciousness was a wicked thing to do. He wondered if the man actually liked beating people to death. They often didn't think about it. It was just a job. Well, he wasn't about to ask him. He buckled him in, with every strap, even the one that went across the forehead, pulling the last one tight just as the man came round. The mouth opened, and Vimes stuffed the hood into it. Then he took the key ring and locked the main door. That should ensure a little extra privacy. He met young Sam coming the other way as he headed for the cells. The boy's face was white in the gloom. 'Found anyone?' said Vimes. 'Oh, sarge . . .'

'Yes?'

'Oh, sarge . . . sarge . . .' Tears were running down the lance- constable's face. Vimes reached out and steadied himself. Sam felt as though there were no bones left in his body. He was trembling. 'There's a woman in the last cell, and she . . . sarge . . . oh, sarge "Try taking deep breaths,' said Vimes. 'Not that this air is fit to breathe.'

'And there's a room right at the end, sarge . . . oh, sarge . . . Nancyball fainted again, sarge 'You didn't,' said Vimes, patting him gently on the back. 'But there's-'

'Let's rescue what we can, shall we, lad?'

'But we were on the hurry-up wagon, sarge!'

'What?' said Vimes, and then it dawned. Oh, yes . . . 'But we didn't hand anyone over, lad,' he said. 'Remember?'

'But I've been on it before, sarge! All the lads have! We just handed people over and went back to the Watch House for cocoa, sarge!'

'Well, you'd had orders . . .' said Vimes, for what good that did. 'We didn't know!' Not exactly, thought Vimes. We didn't ask. We just shut our minds to it. People went in through that front door and some of the poor devils came out through the secret door, not always in one box. They hadn't measured up. Nor did we. He heard a low, visceral sound from the boy. Sam had spotted the torturer in the chair. He shook himself away from Vimes, ran over to the rack, and snatched up a club. Vimes was ready. He grabbed the boy, swung him round, and twisted the thing out of his hand before murder was done. 'No! That's not the way! This is not the time! Hold it back! Tame it! Don't waste it! Send it back! It'll come when you call!'

'You know he did those things!' shouted Sam, kicking at his legs. 'You said we had to take the law into our own hands!' Ah, thought Vimes. This is just the time for a long debate about the theory and practice of justice. Here comes the shortened version. 'You don't bash a man's brains out when he's tied to a chair!'

'He did!'

'And you don't. That's because you're not him!'

'But they-'

'Stand to attention, lance-constable!' shouted Vimes, and the straw- covered ceiling drank and deadened the sound. Sam blinked through reddened eyes.

'Okay, sarge, but-'

'Are you going to snivel all day? Forget about this one. Let's get the living out, right?'

'Hard to tell with-' Sam began, wiping his nose. 'Do it! Follow me!' He knew what was going to be in the dark arches of the cell tunnels, but that didn't make it any better. Some people could walk, or maybe hop. One or two had just been beaten up, but not so badly that they couldn't hear what was going on just out of sight, and dwell on it. They cringed when the gates were opened, and whimpered as he touched them. No wonder Swing got his confessions. And some were dead. Others were . . . well, if they weren't dead, if they'd just gone somewhere in their heads, it was as sure as hell that there was nothing for them to come back to. The chair had broken them again and again. They were beyond the help of any man. Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes removed his knife, and . . . gave what help he could. There was not a twitch, not a sigh. He stood up, black and red stormclouds in his head. You could almost understand a thug, simple as a fist, being paid decent money for doing something he didn't mind doing. But Swing had brains . . . Who really knew what evil lurked in the heart of men? ME. Who knew what sane men were capable of? STILL ME, I'M AFRAID. Vimes glanced at the door of the last room. No, he wasn't going in there again. No wonder it stank here. YOU CAN'T HEAR ME, CAN YOU? OH I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT, said Death, and waited. Vimes went to help young Sam bring Nancyball round. Then they half carried, half walked the prisoners out along the passage up into the warehouse. They laid them down, and went back and dragged out the clerk, whose name was Trebilcock. Vimes explained to him the advantages of turning King's Evidence. They were not major advantages, except when they were compared with the huge disadvantages that would follow swiftly if he refused to do so. And Vimes stepped out into the early evening. Colon and the squad were still waiting; the whole business had taken only twenty minutes or so. The corporal saluted, and then his nose wrinkled.

'Yes, we stink,' said Vimes. He unbuckled his belt and pulled off his breastplate and chain-mail undershirt. The filth of the place had crawled everywhere. 'Okay,' he said, when he no longer felt that he was standing in a sewer, 'I want a couple of men at the entrance over there in the warehouse, a couple round the back with truncheons, and the rest ready out here. Just like we talked about, okay? Wallop them first, arrest them later.'

'Right, sir.' Colon nodded. Men set off. 'And now give me that brandy,' Vimes added. He unwrapped his neckerchief, soaked it in spirit, and tied it around the neck of the bottle. He heard the angry murmur from the squad. They'd just seen Sam and Nancyball bringing out some of the prisoners. 'There was worse,' said Vimes, 'believe me. Top middle window, Fred.'

'Right, sarge,' said Fred Colon, dragging his eyes away from the walking wounded. He raised his crossbow, and neatly took out two window panes and a glazing bar. Vimes located his silver cigar case, removed a cigar, lit it, applied the match to the brandy-soaked rag, waited for it to catch, and hurled the bottle through the window. There was a tinkle, a whoomph of exploding spirit, and a flame that rapidly grew. 'Nice one, sarge,' said Fred. 'Er, I don't know if this is the right time, sarge, but we brought an extra bottle while we were about it . . .'

'Really, Fred? And what d'you say?' Fred Colon glanced at the prisoners again. 'I say we use it,' he said. It went through one of the ground-floor windows. Smoke was already curling out from under the eaves. 'We haven't seen anyone go in or out apart from those guards,' said Fred, as they watched it. 'I don't reckon there's many left in there.'

'Just so long as we destroy the nest,' said Vimes. The front door opened slightly, increasing the draught to the fires. Someone was checking. 'They'll wait until the last minute and come out fighting, Fred,' Vimes warned. 'Good, sarge. It's getting darker,' said Colon grimly. He pulled out his truncheon. Vimes walked around to the back of the building, nodded at the watchmen waiting there, and locked the door with his stolen key ring. It was a narrow door, anyway. Anyone inside would surely go for the big doors at the front, where they could spread out quickly and an ambush wasn't so easy.

He checked on the warehouse. But that was an unlikely exit for the same reason. Besides, he'd locked the door to the cellar, hadn't he?' Young Sam grinned at him. 'That's why you left the torturer tied up, eh, sarge?' he said. Damn! That hadn't occurred to him. He'd been so angry with the clerk he'd forgotten all about the brute in the chair. Vimes hesitated. But burning was a horrible death. He reached for his knife, and remembered it was back in its sheath on his sword belt. Smoke was already drifting up the passage into the warehouse. 'Give me your knife, Sam,' he said. 'I'll just go and . . . check on him.' The lance-constable handed over the knife with some reluctance. 'What're you going to do, sarge?'