Thud!

you.”
    “Sorry, Sergeant, didn’t catch that last bit!” said Vimes loudly. “The lemonade factory, right? Okay!”
    He turned around and almost tripped over Mr. A. E. Pessimal, who was holding a neat clipboard.
    “Ah, Your Grace, there’s just a few small matters I’d like to discuss with you,” said the gleaming little man.
    Vimes’s mouth dropped open.
    “And you think this is a good time, do you?” he managed as he was jostled by an officer carrying a bundle of swords.
    “Well, yes, I’ve turned up a number of little financial and procedural problems,” said A. E. Pessimal calmly, “and I think it’s vitally important that I understand exactly what—”
    Vimes, grinning horribly, grabbed him by the shoulder.
    “Yes! Right! Absolutely!” he shouted. “My dear Mr. Pessimal, what have I been thinking of? You should understand! Come with me, please!”
    He half-dragged the bewildered man out through the back door, lifted him out of the way of a trundling cart as he negotiated the crowded yard, and hustled him into the old factory yard, where the Specials were being kitted up.
    Technically, they were the citizen’s militia, but, as Fred Colon had remarked, it was “better to have them in here pissing themselves than outside pissing on you.” The Special constables were men—mostly—who could be coppers in times of dire need but were generally disqualified from formal Watch membership by reason of shape, profession, age, or, sometimes, brain.
    A lot of the professionals didn’t like them, but Vimes had lately taken the view that when push came to shove it was better to have your fellow citizens shoving alongside you and, that being the case, you might as well teach them how to hold a sword right, lest the arm they clumsily removed was yours.
    Vimes pulled A. E. Pessimal through the press of bodies until he found Fred Colon, who was handing out one-size-doesn’t-fit-anybody helmets.
    “New man for you, Fred,” he said loudly. “Mr. A. E. Pessimal, plain A. E. if he ever makes friends. He’s the government inspector. Kit him out, full fig, and don’t forget the riot shield. A. E. here wants to understand coppering, so he’s kindly volunteered to be an acting constable on the barricades with us.” Over the top of A. E. Pessimal’s head he gave Fred a big wink.
    “Oh, er, right ,” said Fred, and his face, in the flickering light of the flares, acquired the innocent smile of one about to make someone’s life a little pot of bubbling dread. He leaned over the trestle table.
    “Know how to use a sword, Acting Constable Pessimal?” he said, and dropped a helmet on the man’s head, where it spun.
    “Well, I didn’t exactly—” the inspector began as a very elderly sword was shoved across the planks, followed by a heavy truncheon.
    “A shield, then? Any good with a shield?” said Fred, pushing a large such item after the sword.
    “Actually, I didn’t mean—”said A. E. Pessimal, trying to hold both the sword and the truncheon and dropping both, and then the sword and the truncheon and the shield and dropping all three.
    “Any good at running a hundred yards in ten seconds? In this?” Fred went on. A ragged chain-mail coat dropped slowly off the table like a parcel of snakes and landed on A. E. Pessimal’s bright little shoes.
    “Uh, I don’t think—”
    “Standing still and going to the toilet really, really quickly?” said Fred. “Oh well, you’ll learn soon enough.”
    Vimes turned the man around, picked up thirty-five pounds of rust-eaten chain mail, and dropped it into his arms, causing A. E. Pessimal to bend double. “I’ll introduce you to some of the citizens who will be fighting alongside you tonight, shall I?” he said as the little man hobbled after him. “This is Willikins, my butler. No sharpened pennies in your cap tonight, Willikins?”
    “No, sir,” said Willikins, staring at the struggling A. E. Pessimal.
    “Glad to hear it. This is Acting Constable Pessimal, Willikins.” Vimes winked.
    “Honored to meet you, Acting Constable, sir,” said Willikins gravely. “Now that sir is with us I am sure the miscreants will just melt away. Has sir by any chance gone sir-on-one with a troll before? No? A little advice, sir. The important thing is to get in front of them and dodge the first blow. They always leave themselves open and sir may then step smartly forward and select sir’s target of choice.”
    “Er, what if…if I’m not in front of one