The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch leaned against a wall and watched the show.

"We really must put that proposal for a civic fire service to the Patrician again," he said. Across the street a clown picked up a ladder, turned, knocked the clown behind him into a bucket of water, then turned again to see what the commotion was, thus sending his rising victim into the bucket again with a surprising parping noise. The crowd watched silently. If it was funny, clowns wouldn"t be doing it.

"The Guilds are all very much against it," said Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, his second in command, as the clown with the ladder had a bucket of water poured down his trousers. "They say it"d be trespass."

The fire had taken hold in a first-floor room.

"If we let it burn it"d be a blow for entertainment in this city," said Carrot earnestly.

Vimes looked sideways at him. That was a true Carrot comment. It sounded as innocent as hell, but you could take it a different way.

"It certainly would," he said. "Nevertheless, I suppose we"d better do something." He stepped forward and cupped his hands.

"All right, this is the Watch! Bucket chain!" he shouted.

"Aw, must we?" said someone in the crowd.

"Yes, you must," said Captain Carrot. "Come on, everyone, if we form two lines we"ll have this done in no time at all! What d"you say, eh? It might even be fun!"

And they did it, Vimes noted. Carrot treated everyone as if they were jolly good chaps and somehow, in some inexplicable way, they couldn"t resist the urge not to prove him wrong.

And to the disappointment of the crowd the fire was soon put out, once the clowns were disarmed and led away by kind people.

Carrot reappeared, wiping his forehead, as Vimes lit a cigar.

"Apparently the fire-eater was sick," he said.

"It"s just possible we might never be forgiven," said Vimes as they set off on patrol again. "Oh, no... what now?"

Carrot was staring upwards, towards the nearest clacks tower.

"Riot in Cable Street," he said. "It"s All Officers, sir."

They broke into a run. You always did for an All Officers. The people in trouble might well be you.

There were more dwarfs on the streets as they got nearer, and Vimes recognized the signs. The dwarfs all wore preoccupied looks and were walking in the same direction.

"It"s over," he said, as they rounded a corner. "You can tell by the sudden increase of suspiciously innocent bystanders."

Whatever else the emergency had been, it had been a big one. The street was strewn with debris, and a fair amount of dwarfs. Vimes slowed down.

"Third time this week," he said. "What"s got into them?"

"Hard to say, sir," said Carrot. Vimes shot him a glance. Carrot had been raised by dwarfs. He also, if he could possibly avoid it, never told a lie.

"That isn"t the same as I don"t know, is it?" he said.

The captain looked awkward.

"I think it"s... sort of political," he said.

Vimes noted a throwing axe buried in a wall.

"Yes, I can see that," he said.

Someone was coming along the street, and was probably the reason why the riot had broken up. Lance-Constable Bluejohn was the biggest troll Vimes had ever met. He loomed. He was so big that he didn"t stand out in a crowd because he was the crowd; people failed to see him because he was in the way. And, like many overgrown people, he was instinctively gentle and rather shy and inclined to let others tell him what to do. If fate had led him to join a gang, he"d be the muscle. In the Watch, he was the riot shield. Other watchmen were peering around him.

"Looks like it started in Gimlet"s Delicatessen," said Vimes, as the rest of the Watch moved in. "Get a statement off Gimlet."