The Fifth Elephant

a gargoyle. When it came to staring fixedly at one thing, you couldn’t beat a gargoyle. The gargoyles were getting a lot of employment in the clacks industry.
    Constable Visit quite enjoyed the pigeons. He sang them hymns.
    They listened to short homilies, cocking their heads from side to side. After all, he reasoned, had not Bishop Horn preached to the mollusks of the sea? And there was no record of them actually listening, whereas he was certain that the pigeons were taking it in. And they seemed to be interested in his pamphlets on the virtues of Omnianism, admittedly as nesting material at the moment, but this was certainly a good start.
    A pigeon fluttered in as he was scraping the perches.
    “Ah, Zebedinah,” he said, lifting her up and removing the message capsule from her leg. “Well done. This is from Constable Shoe. And you shall have some corn, provided locally by Josiah Frument and Sons, Seed Merchants, but ultimately by the grace of Om.”
    There was a whir of wings and another pigeon settled on the perch. Constable Visit recognized it as Wilhelmina, one of Sergeant Angua’s pigeons.
    He removed the message capsule. The thin paper inside was tightly folded and on it someone had written CPT. CARROT, PERSONAL .
    He hesitated, then put the message from Reg Shoe into the pneumatic tube and heard the whoosh of the suction as it headed off to the main office. The other one, he decided, required a more careful delivery.
    Carrot was working in Vimes’s office but, Visit noticed, not at the Commander’s desk. Instead, he’d set up a folding table in the corner. The tottering piles of paperwork on the desk were slightly less alpine than yesterday. There were even occasional patches of desktop.
    “Personal message for you, Captain.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And Constable Shoe wants a sergeant down at Sonky’s boot factory.”
    “Did you send the message down to the office?”
    “Yes, sir. The pneumatic tube is very useful,” Visit added dutifully.
    “Commander Vimes isn’t very keen on it, but I’m sure it will eventually save us time,” said Carrot. He unfolded the note.
    Visit watched him. Carrot’s lips moved slightly as he read.
    “Where did the pigeon come from?” he said at last, screwing up the note.
    “It looks pretty worn out, sir. Not from inside the city, I’m sure.”
    “Ah. Right. Thank you.”
    “Bad news, sir?” Visit angled.
    “Just news, Constable. Don’t let me detain you.”
    “Right, sir.”
    When the disappointed Visit had gone, Carrot went and looked out of the window.
    There was a typical Ankh-Morpork street scene outside, although people were trying to separate them.
    After a few minutes he went back to his table, wrote a short note, put in into one of the little carriers and sent it away with a hiss of air.
    A few minutes later, Sergeant Colon came panting along the corridor. Carrot was very keen on modernizing the Watch, and in some strange way sending a message via the tube was so much more modern than simply opening the door and shouting, which is what Mr. Vimes did.
    Carrot gave Fred Colon a bright smile.
    “Ah, Fred. Everything going well?”
    “Yessir?” said Fred Colon, uncertainly.
    “Good. I am off to see the Patrician, Fred. As senior sergeant you are in charge of the Watch until Mister Vimes gets back.”
    “Yessir. Er…until you get back, you mean…”
    “I shall not be coming back, Fred. I am resigning.”

    The Patrician looked at the badge on the desk.
    “…and well-trained men,” Carrot was saying, somewhere in front of him. “After all, a few years ago there were only four of us in the Watch. Now it’s functioning just like a machine.”
    “Yes, although bits of it do go boing occasionally,” said Lord Vetinari, still staring at the badge. “Could I invite you to reconsider, Captain?”
    “I’ve reconsidered several times, sir. And it’s not Captain, sir.”
    “The Watch needs you, Mister Ironfoundersson.”
    “The Watch is bigger than one man, sir,” said Carrot, still looking straight ahead.
    “I’m not sure if it’s bigger than Sergeant Colon, though.”
    “People get mistaken about old Fred, sir. He’s a man with a solid bottom to his character.”
    “He’s got a solid bottom to his bottom, Ca—Mister Ironfoundersson.”
    “I mean he doesn’t flap in an emergency, sir.”
    “He doesn’t do anything in an emergency,” said the Patrician. “Except possibly hide. I might go so far as to say that the man