Jingo

there and there , sir, will sweep around in the classic pincer movement.”
    “The thrusting wall of steel served us magnificently in the second war with Quirm!”
    “We lost that one, sir.”
    “But it was a damn close-run thing!”
    “We still lost, sir.”
    “What did you do as a civilian, lieutenant?”
    “I was a surveyor, sir, and I can read Klatchian. That’s why you made me an officer.”
    “So you don’t know how to fight?”
    “Only how to count, sir.”
    “Pah! Show a little courage, man. Although I’ll wager you won’t need to. No stomach for a battle, Johnny Klatchian. Once he tastes our steel, he’ll be off!”
    “I certainly hear what you say, sir,” said the adjutant, who had been surveying the Klatchian lines and had formed his own opinion about the matter.
    His opinion was this: the main force of the Klatchian army had, in recent years, been fighting everyone. That suggested, to his uncomplicated mind, that by now the surviving soldiers were the ones who were in the habit of being alive at the end of battles. And were also very experienced at facing all kinds of enemies. The stupid ones were dead.
    The current Ankh-Morpork army, on the other hand, had never faced an enemy at all, although day-to-day experience of living in the city might count for something there, at least in the rougher areas. He believed, along with General Tacticus, that courage, bravery and the indomitable human spirit were fine things which nevertheless tended to take second place to the combination of courage, bravery, the indomitable human spirit and a six-to-one superiority of numbers.
    It had all sounded straightforward in Ankh-Morpork, he thought. We were going to sail into Klatch and be in Al-Khali by teatime, drinking sherbet with pliant young women in the Rhoxi. The Klatchians would take one look at our weapons and run away. Well, the Klatchians had taken a good look this morning. So far they hadn’t run. They appeared to be sniggering a lot.

    Vimes rolled his eyes. It worked…but how did it work?
    He’d heard plenty of good speakers, and Captain Carrot was not among them. He hesitated, lost the thread, repeated himself and in general made a mess of the whole thing.
    And yet…
    And yet…
    He watched the faces that were watching Carrot. There were the D’regs, and some of the Klatchians who had stayed behind, and Willikins and his reduced company. They were listening.
    It was a kind of magic. He told people they were good chaps, and they knew they weren’t good chaps, but the way he told it made them believe it for a while. Here was someone who thought you were a noble and worthy person, and somehow it would be unthinkable to disappoint them. It was a mirror of a speech, reflecting back to you what you wanted to hear. And he meant it all.
    Even so, men occasionally glanced up at Vimes and Ahmed and he could see them thinking, in their separate ways, “It must be all right if they’re in on it.” That, he was ashamed to realize, was one of the advantages of armies. People looked to other people for orders.
    “This is a trick?” said Ahmed.
    “No. He doesn’t know any tricks like that,” said Angua. “He really doesn’t. Uh-oh…”
    There was a scuffle in the ranks.
    Carrot strode forward and reached down, bringing up Private Bourke and a D’reg, each man held by the collar in one big fist.
    “What’s going on, you two?”
    “He called me the brother of a pig, sir.”
    “Liar! You called me a greasy dishcloth-head!”
    Carrot shook his head. “And you were both doing so well, too,” he said sadly. “There really is no call for this. Now I want you, Hashel, and you , Vincent, to shake hands, right? And apologize, yes? We’ve all had a rather trying time, but I know you’re both fine fellows underneath it all—”
    Vimes heard Ahmed murmur. “Oh, well, now it’s all over…”
    “—so if you’ll just shake hands we’ll say no more about it.”
    Vimes glanced at 71-hour Ahmed. The man wearing a sort of waxen grin.
    The two scufflers very gingerly touched hands, as if they were expecting a spark to leap the gap.
    “And now you, Vincent, apologize to Mr. Hashel…”
    There was a reluctant “’ry.”
    “And we’re sorry for what?” Carrot prompted.
    “…sorry for calling him a greasy dishcloth-head…”
    “Well said. And you , Hashel, apologize to Private Bourke.”
    The D’reg’s eyes scurried around their sockets, looking to find a way out that would allow their