Night Watch

moment, sir, for your protection.”
    “Who…who from?”
    “Me. I’ll kill you if you try to run away, sir.”
    Vimes hurried back to the main chamber. The torturer was still out cold. Vimes hauled him up into the chair, with great effort, and pulled off his hood, and recognized the face. The face, yes, but not the person. That is, it was the kind of face you saw a lot of in Ankh-Morpork: big, bruised, and belonging to someone who’d never quite learned that hitting people long after they’d lost consciousness was a wicked thing to do. He wondered if the man actually liked beating people to death. They often didn’t think about it. It was just a job.
    Well, he wasn’t about to ask him. He buckled him in with every strap, even the one that went across the forehead, pulling the last one tight just as the man came round. The mouth opened, and Vimes stuffed the hood into it.
    Then he took the key ring and locked the main door. That should ensure a little extra privacy.
    He met young Sam coming the other way as he headed for the cells. The boy’s face was white in the gloom.
    “Found any?” said Vimes.
    “Oh, Sarge…”
    “Yes?”
    “Oh, Sarge…Sarge…” Tears were running down the lance constable’s face.
    Vimes reached out and steadied himself. Sam felt as though there were no bones left in his body. He was trembling.
    “There’s a woman in the last cell, and she…. Sarge…oh, Sarge…”
    “Try taking deep breaths,” said Vimes. “Not that this air is fit to breathe.”
    “And there’s a room right at the end, Sarge…. oh, Sarge…Nancyball fainted again, Sarge…”
    “You didn’t,” said Vimes, patting him gently on the back.
    “But there’s—”
    “Let’s rescue who we can, shall we, lad?”
    “But we were on the hurry-up wagon, Sarge!”
    “What?” said Vimes, and then it dawned. Oh, yes…
    “But we didn’t hand anyone over, lad,” he said. “Remember?”
    “But I’ve been on it before, Sarge! All the lads have! We just handed people over and went back to the Watch House for cocoa, Sarge!”
    “Well, you’d had orders…” said Vimes, for what good that did.
    “We didn’t know! ”
    Not exactly, thought Vimes. We didn’t ask. We just shut our minds to it. People went in through that front door and some of the poor devils came out through the secret door, not always in one box.
    They hadn’t measured up.
    Nor did we.
    He heard a low, visceral sound from the boy. Sam had spotted the torturer in the chair. He shook himself away from Vimes, ran over to the rack, and snatched up a club.
    Vimes was ready. He grabbed the boy, swung him round, and twisted the thing out of his hand before murder was done.
    “No! That’s not the way! This is not the time! Hold it back! Tame it! Don’t waste it! Send it back! It’ll come when you call!”
    “You know he did those things!” shouted Sam, kicking at Vimes’s legs. “You said we had to take the law into our own hands!”
    Ah, thought Vimes. This is just the time for a long debate about the theory and practice of justice. Here comes the shortened version.
    “You don’t bash a man’s brains out when he’s tied to a chair!”
    “ He did!”
    “And you don’t. That’s because you’re not him!”
    “But they—”
    “Stand to attention, Lance Constable!” shouted Vimes, and the straw-covered ceiling drank and deadened the sound. Sam blinked through reddened eyes.
    “Okay, Sarge, but—”
    “Are you going to snivel all day? Forget about this one. Let’s get the living out, right?”
    “Hard to tell with—“Sam began, wiping his nose.
    “Do it! Follow me!”
    He knew what was going to be in the dark arches of the cell tunnels, but that didn’t make it any better. Some people could walk, or maybe hop. One or two had just been beaten up, but not so badly that they couldn’t hear what was going on just out of sight, and dwell on it. They cringed when the gates were opened, and whimpered as he touched them. No wonder Swing got his confessions.
    And some were dead. Others were…probably dead as far as Vimes could tell. If they weren’t, if they’d just gone somewhere in their heads, it was as sure as hell that there was nothing for them to come back to. The chair had broken them again and again. They were beyond the help of any man.
    Just in case, and without any feeling of guilt, Vimes removed his knife, and…gave what help he could. There was not a twitch, not a sigh.
    He stood up, black and red storm