Jingo

fires. But there were no camels and horses, merely a long scuffed trail leading off among the dunes.
    Morale began to rise a little. Attacking a dangerous enemy who isn’t there is one of the more attractive forms of warfare, and there was a certain amount of assertion about how lucky the D’regs were to have run away in time, and some extemporizing on the subject of what the soldiers would have done to the D’regs if they’d caught them…
    “Who’s that?” said the sergeant.
    A figure appeared between the dunes, riding on a camel. His white robes fluttered in the breeze.
    He slid down when he reached the Klatchians, and waved at them.
    “Good morning, gentlemen! May I persuade you to surrender?”
    “Who are you?”
    “Captain Carrot, sir. If you would be kind enough to lay down your weapons no one will get hurt.”
    The commander looked up. Blobs were appearing along the tops of the dunes. They rose, and turned out to be heads.
    “They’re…D’regs, sir!” said the sergeant.
    “No. D’regs would be charging, sergeant.”
    “Oh, sorry. Shall I tell them to charge?” said Carrot. “Is that what you’d prefer?”
    The D’regs were all along the dunes now. The climbing sun glittered off metal.
    “Are you telling me,” the commander began slowly, “that you can persuade D’regs not to charge?”
    “It was tricky, but I think they’ve got the idea,” said Carrot.
    The commander considered his position. There were D’regs on either side. His troop were practically huddling together. And this red-headed, blue-eyed man was smiling at him.
    “How do they feel about the merciful treatment of prisoners?” he ventured.
    “I think they could get the hang of it. If I insist.”
    The commander glanced at the silent D’regs again.
    “Why?” he said. “ Why aren’t they fighting us?” he said.
    “My commander says he doesn’t want unnecessary loss of life, sir,” said Carrot. “That’s Commander Vimes, sir. He’s sitting on that dune up there.”
    “ You can persuade armed D’regs not to charge and you have a commander?”
    “Yes, sir. He says this is a police action.”
    The commander swallowed. “We give in,” he said.
    “What, just like that, sir?” said his sergeant. “Without a fight?”
    “ Yes , sergeant. Without a fight. This man can make water run uphill and he has a commander. I love the idea of giving in without a fight. I’ve fought for ten years and giving in without a fight is what I’ve always wanted to do.”

    Water dripped off the Boat’s metal ceiling and blobbed on to the paper in front of Leonard of Quirm. He wiped it away. It might have been boring, waiting in a small metal can under a nondescript jetty, but Leonard had no concept of the term.
    Absentmindedly, he jotted a brief sketch of an improved ventilation system.
    He started to watch his own hand. Almost without his guidance, taking its instructions from somewhere else in his head, it drew a cutaway of a much larger version of the Boat. Here, here and here…there could be a bank of a hundred oars rather than pedals, each one manned—his pencil caressed the paper—by a well-muscled and not overdressed young warrior. A boat that would pass unseen under other boats, take men wherever they needed to go. Here a giant saw, affixed to the roof, so that when rowed at speed it could cut the hulls of enemy ships. And here and here a tube…
    He stopped and stared at his drawing for a while. Then he sighed and started to tear it up.

    Vimes watched from the dune. He couldn’t hear much from up here, but he didn’t need to.
    Angua sat down beside him. “It’s working, isn’t it?” she said.
    “Yes.”
    “What’s he going to do?”
    “Oh, he’ll take their weapons and let ’em go, I suppose.”
    “Why do people follow him?” said Angua.
    “Well, you’re his girlfriend, you ought—”
    “That’s different. I love him because he’s kind without thinking about it. He doesn’t watch his own thoughts like other people do. When he does good things it’s because he’s decided to do them, not because he’s trying to measure up to something. He’s so simple. Anyway, I’m a wolf living with people, and there’s a name for wolves that live with people. If he whistled, I’d come running.”
    Vimes tried not to show his embarrassment.
    Angua smiled. “Don’t worry, Mr. Vimes. You’ve said it yourself. Sooner or later, we’re all someone’s dog.”
    “It’s like hypnotism,” said Vimes