Guards! Guards! (Discworld 8)

“What is it?” said Nobby.

It was vaguely round, of a woodish texture, and when struck made a noise like a ruler plucked over the edge of a desk.

Sergeant Colon tapped it again.

“I give in,” he said.

Carrot proudly lifted it out of the battered packaging.

“It's a cake,” he said, shoving both hands under the thing and raising it with some difficulty. “From my mother.” He managed to put it on the table without trapping his fingers.

“Can you eat it?” said Nobby. “It's taken months to get here. You'd think it would go stale.”

“Oh, it's to a special dwarfish recipe,” said Carrot. “Dwarfish cakes don't go stale.”

Sergeant Colon gave it another sharp rap. “I suppose not,” he conceded.

“It's incredibly sustaining,” said Carrot. “Practically magical. The secret has been handed down from dwarf to dwarf for centuries. One tiny piece of this and you won't want anything to eat all day.”

“Get away?” said Colon.

“A dwarf can go hundreds of miles with a cake like this in his pack,” Carrot went on.

“I bet he can,” said Colon gloomily, “I bet all the time he'd be thinking, 'Bloody hell, I hope I can find something else to eat soon, otherwise it's the bloody cake again.' ”

Carrot, to whom the word irony meant something to do with metal, picked up his pike and after a couple of impressive rebounds managed to cut the cake into approximately four slices.

“There we are,” he said cheerfully. “One for each of us, and one for the captain.” He realised what he had said. “Oh. Sorry.”

“Yes,” said Colon flatly.

They sat in silence for a moment.

“I liked him,” said Carrot. “I'm sorry he's gone.”

There was some more silence, very similar to the earlier silence but even deeper and more furrowed with depression.

“I expect you'll be made captain now,” said Carrot.

Colon started. “Me? I don't want to be captain! I can't do the thinking. It's not worth all that thinking, just for another nine dollars a month.”

He drummed his fingers on the table.

“Is that all he got?” said Nobby. “I thought officers were rolling in it.”

“Nine dollars a month,” said Colon. “I saw the pay scales once. Nine dollars a month and two dollars plumes allowance. Only he never claimed that bit. Funny, really.”

“He wasn't the plumes type,” said Nobby.

“You're right,” said Colon. “The thing about the captain, see, I read this book once . . . you know we've all got alcohol in our bodies . . . sort of natural alcohol? Even if you never touch a drop in your life, your body sort of makes it anyway ... but Captain Vimes, see, he's one of those people whose body doesn't do it naturally. Like, he was born two drinks below normal.”

“Gosh,” said Carrot.

“Yes ... so, when he's sober, he's really sober. Knurd, they call it. You know how you feel when you wake up if you've been on the piss all night, Nobby? Well, he feels like that all the time. ”

“Poor bugger,” said Nobby. “I never realised. No wonder he's always so gloomy.”

“So he's always trying to catch up, see. It's just that he doesn't always get the dose right. And, of course-” Colon glanced at Carrot-' 'he was brung low by a woman. Mind you, just about anything brings him low."