Snuff

boat on a black and treacherous river in thundering, streaming darkness?
    He was running now along the squelching bank, water pouring down his neck. But running wasn’t enough. You had to think. You thought that the pilot of the boat knew the river and knew the boat. He could have moored at any time, couldn’t he? And he hadn’t done so, but he clearly wasn’t a fool, because even having known the river for only a few hours, Vimes could see that no fool would survive on it for more than a few journeys. It was built to be a trap for the stupid.
    On the other hand, if you were not stupid then being an ox-boat pilot was a pretty good gig: you’d have prestige, respect, responsibility and a steady wage for a steady job, in addition to the envy of all the little boys on every landing stage. Sybil had told him all about them, with some enthusiasm, one evening. So why, in such a decent position, would a man pilot such a valuable boat with a valuable cargo down a river on an evening that promised annihilation around every snake-like bend when no blame would attach to mooring up for a while?
    Money? No, Vimes thought. They call this river Old Treachery, and surely money wasn’t any good to you when you were sinking dreadfully in its muddy embrace. Besides, Vimes knew men like that, and they tended to be proud, self-reliant and impossible to bribe. He probably wouldn’t jeopardize the boat, even if you held a knife to his throat—But traditionally the family comes too; the pilot was always working from home, wasn’t he?
    And what would a desperate pilot do then? What would he do if a knife was held to the throat of a wife, or a child? What else could he do but sail on, trusting a lifetime of experience to see them all to safety? And it wouldn’t be one unwelcome guest, no, because then you would try to run the boat heavily aground while you, muscles tensed, would rely on the confusion to leap at the fallen man and strangle him with your bare hands, but that would only work if he hadn’t brought along an ally. And so then you stayed at the wheel, hoping and praying, and expecting, at any moment, the rumble of the damn slam.
    Feeney was sprinting along the bank after him now, and managed to pant, ‘What are we going to do, sir? Seriously, what are we going to do!’
    Vimes ignored Feeney for a moment. Rain, boiling surf and fallen logs were enough to contend with, but he kept his eye on the line of barges. Right now there was a rhythm as they snaked back and forth, but it was constantly interrupted by bits of driftwood and whatever attempt at steering was happening along there in the wheelhouse. Every time the rearmost barge hit the bank there was a moment, one precious little moment, when a man might jump aboard, if that man were foolish.
    So he jumped, and realized that a jump would have to beget another jump and failure to keep the rhythm would mean falling back into the torrent, but jumping on to the next barge, which was swinging and bucking in the swell, you just hoped that you didn’t get a foot stuck between the two of them, because two twenty-five-foot barges colliding as a sandwich with your foot in the middle would do more than just leave a bruise. But Stinky ran and jumped and pirouetted just ahead of him and Vimes was quick enough to get the message, landing squarely on the next barge, and so, surprisingly, did Feeney, who actually laughed, although you had to be within a foot of him to hear that.
    ‘Well done, sir! We did this when I was a lad … every boy did … the big ones were best …’
    Vimes had got his breath back after the first two jumps. According to what Feeney had told him, the Wonderful Fanny was a bulk carrier, big and slow, but it could take any load. There could be anything in these barges, he thought, but there was no smell of goblins yet and there were two barges still to go and weather that was trying to get even worse.
    With that thought, there was Stinky again, who apparently could come and go without ever being seen either coming or going. And he still glowed faintly. Vimes had to crouch to speak to him. ‘Where are they, Stinky?’
    The goblin farted, quite probably as a clown does, more for entertainment than relief. Clearly happy at the response, he cracked, ‘Number one barge! Easy to get to! Easy to feed!’
    Vimes eyed the distance to the barge immediately behind the Fanny . Surely there had to be some kind of walkway? Some means of getting into the barges so that the