Night Watch

Keel was leading the revolution. I wonder if that’s what he thought, too?
    But I just wanted to keep a few streets safe. I just wanted to keep a handful of decent, silly people away from the dumb mobs and the mindless rebels and the idiot soldiery. I really, really hoped we could get away with it.
    Maybe the monks were right. Changing history is like damming a river. It’ll find its way around.
    He saw Sam beaming among the men. Hero worship, he thought. That sort of thing can turn you blind.
    “Any trouble?” he said.
    “Don’t think anyone’s worked out what’s happening here, Sarge. There’s been a lot happening around Dolly Sisters and over that way. Cavalry charges and what have you—hold on, here come some more.”
    A watchman had signaled from the top of the barricade. Vimes heard the commotion on the other side of the pile.
    “More people runnin’ away from Dolly Sisters, by the look of it,” said Colon. “What d’you want us to do, Sarge?”
    Keep them out, thought Vimes. We don’t know who they are. We can’t let everyone in. Some of them will be trouble.
    The trouble is, I know what’s going on out there. The city is a little slice of Hell, and there’s no real safety anywhere.
    And I know what I’m going to decide, because I watch me decide it.
    I don’t believe this. I’m standing over there now, a kid who’s still clean and pink and full of ideals, looking at me as if I’m some kind of hero. I don’t dare not to be. I’m going to make the stupid decision because I don’t want to look bad in front of myself. Try explaining that to anyone who hasn’t had a couple of drinks.
    “All right, let them through,” he said. “But no weapons. Pass the word around.”
    “Take weapons off people?” said Colon.
    “Think about it, Fred. We don’t want Unmentionables in here, do we, or soldiers in disguise? A man’s got to be vouched for before he can carry arms. I ain’t going to be stabbed in the back and the front at the same time. Oh, and Fred…I don’t know if I can do this, and probably it won’t last, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re promoted to sergeant. Anyone who wants to argue about the extra stripe, tell ’em to argue with me.”
    Fred Colon’s chest, already running to fat, swelled visibly.
    “ Right, Sarge. Er…does that mean I still take orders from you? Right. Right. Right. I still take orders from you. Right.”
    “Don’t move any more barricades. Fill up the alleys. Hold this line. Vimes, you come with me, I’ll need a runner.”
    “I’m pretty runny, Sarge,” Nobby volunteered from somewhere behind him.
    “Then what I want you to do, Nobby, is get out there and find out what’s happening now.”
    Sergeant Dickins turned out to be younger than Vimes remembered. But he was still close to retirement. He’d maintained a flourishing sergeant’s mustache, waxed to points and clearly dyed, and the proper sergeant shape, occasioned by means of undisclosed corsetry. He’d spent a lot of time in the regiments, Vimes recalled, although he came from Llamedos originally. The men found that out because he belonged to some druid religion so strict that they didn’t even use standing stones. And they were strongly against swearing, which is a real handicap in a sergeant. Or would be, if sergeants weren’t so good at improvising.
    He was currently in Welcome Soap, a continuation of Cable Street. And he had the army.
    It wasn’t much of one. No two weapons were exactly alike, and most of them were not, strictly speaking, weapons. Vimes shuddered when he saw the crowd, and had a flashback, which was probably a flash forward, to all the domestic disputes he’d attended over the years. You knew where you were with strictly-speaking weapons when they came at you. It was the not-strictly-speaking ones that scared the cacky out of a new recruit. It was the meat cleavers tied to poles. It was the long spikes and the meathooks.
    This was, after all, the area of small traders, porters, butchers, and longshoremen. And so, standing in raggedy lines in front of Vimes, were men who, every day, peacefully and legally, handled things with blades and spikes that made a mere sword look like a girl’s hatpin.
    There were classic weapons, too. Men had come back from wars with their sword or their halberd. Weapons? Gods bless you, sir, no! Them’s mementoes. And the sword had probably been used to poke the fire, and the halberd had done duty as a support for one end of