Night Watch

monkey’s uncle. He said the man is used to serious command. I think he rather took to him, to tell you the truth.”
    “Ye gods, Tom, I need some help here!” said the major.
    “Then send out some gallopers right away. A little informal patrolling, perhaps. Get some proper intelligence. You can afford to wait half an hour.”
    “Right! Right! Good idea!” said the major, steaming with relief. “See to it, could you?”
    After the flurry of orders, he sat back and stared at the map. Some things at least made sense. All these barricades looked inward. People were barricading themselves against the Palace and the center of the city. No one would be bothered much about the outside world. If you had to take an outlying part of the city in those circumstances, then the thing to do would be to go in via a gatehouse in the city wall. They might not be quite so guarded as they ought to be.
    “Tom?”
    “Yes, Clive?”
    “Have you ever sung the national anthem?”
    “Oh, lots of times, sir.”
    “I don’t mean officially.”
    “You mean just to show I’m patriotic? Good gods, no. That would be a rather odd thing to do,” said the captain.
    “And how about the flag?”
    “Well, obviously I salute it every day, sir.”
    “But you don’t wave it, at all?” the major enquired.
    “I think I waved a paper one a few times when I was a little boy. Patrician’s birthday or something. We stood in the streets as he rode by and we shouted ‘Hurrah!’”
    “Never since then?”
    “Well, no, Clive,” said the captain, looking embarrassed. “I’d be very worried if I saw a man singing the national anthem and waving the flag, sir. It’s really a thing foreigners do.”
    “Really? Why?”
    “ We don’t need to show we’re patriotic, sir. I mean, this is Ankh-Morpork. We don’t have to make a big fuss about being the best, sir. We just know. ”

    It was a beguiling theory that had arisen in the minds of Wiglet, and Waddy, and, yes, even in the not-overly-exercised mind of Fred Colon, and as far as Vimes could understand it, it went like this.
Supposing the area behind the barricades was bigger than the area in front of the barricades, right?
Like, sort of, it had more people in it and more of the city, if you follow me.
Then, correct me if I’m wrong, Sarge, but that’d mean in a manner of speaking we are now in front of the barricades, am I right?
Then, as it were, it’s not like we’re rebellin’, is it? ’Cos there’s more of us, so the majority can’t rebel, it stands to reason.
So that makes us the good guys. Obviously we’ve been the good guys all along, but now it’d be kind of official, right? Like, mathematical?
So, we thought we’d push on to Short Street and then we could nip down into Dimwell and up the other side of the river…
Are we going to get into trouble for this, Sarge?
You’re looking at me in a funny way, Sarge.
Sorry, Sarge.
    Vimes, with an increasingly worried Fred Colon in front of him, and some of the other barricadeers standing around as if caught in an illicit game of Knocking On Doors And Running Away, thought about this. The men watched him carefully, in case of explosion. And it actually had a weird kind of logic, if you didn’t factor in considerations like “real life” and “common sense.”
    They’d worked hard. It was easy enough to block a city street, heavens knew. You just nailed planks around a couple of wagons and piled it high with furniture and junk. That took care of the main streets, and with enough pushing you could move it forward.
    As for the rest, it really hadn’t been that hard. There had been lots of small barricades in any case. The lads had simply joined them up. Without anyone really noticing, The People’s Republic of Treacle Mine Road now occupied almost a quarter of the city.
    Vimes took a few deep breaths.
    “Fred?” he said.
    “Yes, Sarge?”
    “Did I tell you to do this?”
    “No, Sarge.”
    “There’s too many alleys. There’s too many people, Fred.”
    Colon brightened. “Ah, well, there’s more coppers too, Sarge. A lot of the lads found their way here. Good lads, too. And Sergeant Dickins, he knows about this stuff, he remembers the last time this happened, Sarge, so he asked every able-bodied man who knew how to use a weapon to muster up, Sarge. There’s a lot of ’em, Sarge! We got a army, Sarge!”
    This is how the world collapses, thought Vimes. I was just a young fool, I didn’t see it like this. I thought