Night Watch

weren’t even trying.”
    “Come on, Ned, no one’s going to have a go at us if we’re just patroling,” mumbled Colon.
    “Patroling for what? ” said Coates. “To keep the peace? What’ll you do when there’s no peace left to keep? Well, I’m not going to stand around and watch you get killed. I’m off.”
    He turned and strode out of the yard and into the Watch House. You bloody fool, you’re right, Vimes thought. I just wish you weren’t so right.
    “Still with us, lads?” he said to the group caught behind the line.
    “That’s right, Sarge!” said Lance Constable Vimes. The rest of the volunteers seemed slightly less certain.
    “ Are we gonna get killed?” said Wiglet.
    “Who said it’s going to come to a fight?” said Vimes, watching Coates’s retreating back.
    “Wait a moment, I want a word with Ned—”
    “Got the shilling, Sarge,” Snouty announced, advancing across the yard. “And the captain wants a word with you.”
    “Tell him I’ll be up in just a few—”
    “It’s the new captain,” said Snouty quickly. “He’s here already, hnah. Keen. Milit’ry. Not the patient type, Sarge.”
    I used to have Carrot and Detritus and Angua and Cheery for this, Vimes thought bitterly. I’d say you do this, and you do that, and all I had to do was fret and deal with the soddin’ politics…
    “Get Fred to swear the men in,” he said. “And tell the officer I’ll be with him shortly.”
    He ran through the Watch House and out of the front door. There were a lot of people in the street, more than usual. It wasn’t a mob as such, but it was Ankh-Morpork’s famous Ur-mob, the state you got just before a real mob happened. It spread across the city like web and spider, and, when some triggering event happened, twanged its urgent message through the streets and thickened and tightened around the spot. The Dolly Sisters Massacre had got around and the numbers had grown in the telling. Vimes could sense the tension in the web. It was just waiting for some idiot to do the wrong thing, and Nature is bountiful where idiots are concerned.
    “Coates!” he yelled.
    To his surprise, the man stopped and turned.
    “Yeah?”
    “I know you’re with the revolutionaries.”
    “You’re just guessing.”
    “No, you had the password in your notebook. The same one Dibbler was passing out in pies. You must know I was able to get into the lockers. Look, do you think you and Dibbler’d still be walking around if I was a spy for Swing?”
    “Sure. You’re not after us, we can be mopped up later. Swing wants the leaders.”
    Vimes stood back. “Okay. Why haven’t you told the lads?”
    “Things are moving, that’s why. It’s all starting,” said Ned. “Who you are doesn’t matter anymore. But you’re going to get the lads killed. They’d have been on our side, if it wasn’t for you. I was working on ’em. You know Spatchcock always drops his sword on his foot and Nancyball wets himself when he’s threatened and Vimesy is simple, and now you’re going to stick ’em all right in the middle and they’re gonna die. And all for no reason!”
    “Why haven’t you told them?” Vimes repeated.
    “Maybe you’ve got friends in high places,” Ned snarled.
    Vimes glanced up at the rooftops.
    “Have we finished?” said Ned.
    “Give me your badge,” said Vimes.
    “My what?”
    “You’re quitting. Fair enough. Give me your badge.”
    Coates recoiled as if he’d been stung.
    “Blow that!”
    “Then leave the city,” said Vimes. “It’d be for your own good.”
    “Is that a threat?”
    “Not from me. But here’s some advice, boy. Don’t put your trust in revolutions. They always come around again. That’s why they’re called revolutions. People die, and nothing changes. I’ll see you later.”
    He turned his back and hurried away, so that the man wouldn’t see his face.
    Okay. Now it was time. It had to be now, or he’d burst like Mr. Salciferous. He had wanted to do this, hadn’t dared try it, because those monks could probably do a man a lot of no good if he crossed them, but it had all gone too far now…
    A sense of duty told him there was an officer waiting to see him. He overruled it. It was not in possession of all the facts.
    Vimes reached the entrance to the Watch House and stopped. He shut his eyes. If anyone had bothered to look at him, they’d have seen a man apparently trying to grind two cigarette stubs into the road, one with each foot.
    He thought