The Fifth Elephant (Discworld 24)

The two men stood some way apart, hands in pockets, apparently paying little attention to one another. Sergeant Colon began to whistle under his breath.

"I know a thing or two," said All, carefully. "People think waiters ain"t got ears."

"I know lots of stuff, All," said Colon, jingling his pocket change.

Both men stared at the sky for a while.

"I may have some honey ice cream left over from yesterday - "

Sergeant Colon looked down at the cart.

"Here, Mister Jolson," he said, in a voice of absolute surprise. "Some complete bastard"s put some sort of clamp on your wheel! Well, we"ll soon see about that."

Colon pulled a couple of round, white-painted paddles from his belt, sighted on the Watch House semaphore tower peeking over the top of the old lemonade factory, waited until the watching gargoyle signalled him, and with a certain amount of verve and flair ripped off an impression of a man with stiff arms playing two games of table tennis at once.

"The team"ll be along any minute - ah, watch this..."

A little further along the street two trolls were carefully clamping a hay wagon. After a minute or two one of them happened to glance at the Watch House tower, nudged his colleague, produced two bats of his own and, with rather less elan than Sergeant Colon, sent a signal. When it was answered the trolls looked around, spotted Colon and lumbered towards him.

"Ta-da!" said Colon proudly.

"Amazing, this new technology," said All Jolson admiringly. "And they must"ve been, what, forty or fifty yards away?"

"s"right, All. In the old days I"d"ve had to blow a whistle. And they"ll arrive here knowin" it was me who wanted "em, too."

"Instead of having to look and see it was you," said Jolson.

"Well, yeah," said Colon, aware that what had transpired might not be the brightest ray of light in the new dawn of the communications revolution. "Of course, it"d have worked just as well if they"d been streets away. On the other side of the city, even. And if I told the gargoyle to, as we say, "put" it on the "big" tower over on the Tump they"d have got it in Sto Lat within minutes, see?"

"And that"s twenty miles."

"At least."

"Amazing, Fred."

"Time moves on, All," said Colon, as the trolls reached them.

"Constable Chert, who told you to clamp my friend"s cart?" he demanded.

"Well, sarge, dis morning you said we was to clamp every - "

"Not this cart," said Colon. "Unlock it right now, and we"ll say no more about it, eh?"

Constable Chert seemed to reach the conclusion that he wasn"t being paid to think, and this was just as well because Sergeant Colon did not believe trolls gave value for money in that department. "If you say so, sarge..."

"While you"re doing that, me and All here will have a little chat, right, All?" said Fred Colon.

"That"s right, Fred."

"Well, I say chat, but I"ll be mostly listenin", on account of having my mouth full."

Snow cascaded from the fir branches. The man forced his way through, stood fighting for breath for a moment, and then set off across the clearing at a fast trot.

Across the valley he heard the first blast on the horn.

He had an hour, then, if he could trust them. He might not make it to the tower, but there were other ways out.

He had plans. He could outwit them. Keep off the snow as much as you can, double back, make use of the streams... It was possible, it had been done before. He was sure of that.