“Yes, sir. But—and I realize this is a
remote
chance, sir—it might be that while we’re thrusting at the heart of the Klatchian aggressor—”
“—black heart—” Rust corrected him.
“—black heart of the Klatchian aggressor, sir, the arms of the Klatchian aggressor, those companies
there
and
there
, sir, will sweep around in the classic pincer movement.”
“The thrusting wall of steel served us magnificently in the second war with Quirm!”
“We lost that one, sir.”
“But it was a damn close-run thing!”
“We still lost, sir.”
“What did you do as a civilian, lieutenant?”
“I was a surveyor, sir, and I can read Klatchian. That’s why you made me an officer.”
“So you don’t know how to fight?”
“Only how to count, sir.”
“Pah! Show a little courage, man. Although I’ll wager you won’t need to. No stomach for a battle, Johnny Klatchian. Once he tastes our steel, he’ll be off!”
“I certainly hear what you say, sir,” said the adjutant, who had been surveying the Klatchian lines and had formed his own opinion about the matter.
His opinion was this: the main force of the Klatchian army had, in recent years, been fighting everyone. That suggested, to his uncomplicated mind, that by now the surviving soldiers were the ones who were in the habit of being alive at the end of battles. And were also very experienced at facing all kinds of enemies. The stupid ones were dead.
The current Ankh-Morpork army, on the other hand, had never faced an enemy at all, although day-to-day experience of living in the city might count for something there, at least in the rougher areas. He believed, along with General Tacticus, that courage, bravery and the indomitable human spirit were fine things which nevertheless tended to take second place to the
combination
of courage, bravery, the indomitable human spirit
and
a six-to-one superiority of numbers.
It had all sounded straightforward in Ankh-Morpork, he thought. We were going to sail into Klatch and be in Al-Khali by teatime, drinking sherbet with pliant young women in the Rhoxi. The Klatchians would take one look at our weapons and run away. Well, the Klatchians had taken a good look this morning. So far they hadn’t run. They appeared to be sniggering a lot.
Vimes rolled his eyes. It worked…but
how
did it work?
He’d heard plenty of good speakers, and Captain Carrot was not among them. He hesitated, lost the thread, repeated himself and in general made a mess of the whole thing.
And yet…
And yet…
He watched the faces that were watching Carrot. There were the D’regs, and some of the Klatchians who had stayed behind, and Willikins and his reduced company. They were listening.
It was a kind of magic. He told people they were good chaps, and they knew they weren’t good chaps, but the way he told it made them believe it for a while. Here was someone who thought you were a noble and worthy person, and somehow it would be unthinkable to disappoint them. It was a mirror of a speech, reflecting back to you what you wanted to hear. And he meant it all.
Even so, men occasionally glanced up at Vimes and Ahmed and he could see them thinking, in their separate ways, “It must be all right if they’re in on it.” That, he was ashamed to realize, was one of the advantages of armies. People looked to other people for orders.
“This is a trick?” said Ahmed.
“No. He doesn’t know any tricks like that,” said Angua. “He really doesn’t. Uh-oh…”
There was a scuffle in the ranks.
Carrot strode forward and reached down, bringing up Private Bourke and a D’reg, each man held by the collar in one big fist.
“What’s going on, you two?”
“He called me the brother of a pig, sir.”
“Liar! You called
me
a greasy dishcloth-head!”
Carrot shook his head. “And you were both doing so well, too,” he said sadly. “There really is no call for this. Now I want you, Hashel, and
you
, Vincent, to shake hands, right? And apologize, yes? We’ve all had a rather trying time, but I know you’re both fine fellows underneath it all—”
Vimes heard Ahmed murmur. “Oh, well,
now
it’s all over…”
“—so if you’ll just shake hands we’ll say no more about it.”
Vimes glanced at 71-hour Ahmed. The man wearing a sort of waxen grin.
The two scufflers very gingerly touched hands, as if they were expecting a spark to leap the gap.
“And now you, Vincent, apologize to Mr. Hashel…”
There was a reluctant “’ry.”
“And we’re sorry for what?” Carrot prompted.
“…sorry for calling him a greasy dishcloth-head…”
“Well said. And
you
, Hashel, apologize to Private Bourke.”
The D’reg’s eyes scurried around their sockets, looking to find a way out that would allow their body to come too. Then he gave up.
“’ry…”
“For…?”
“’ry for calling him a brother of a pig…”
Carrot lowered both men.
“Good! I’m sure you’ll get along splendidly once you get to know each other—”
“I didn’t just see that, did I?” said Ahmed. “I didn’t just see him talk like a little schoolteacher to Hashel who, I happen to know, once hit a man so hard his nose ended up in one of his ears?”
“Yes, you did,” said Angua. “And now watch them.”
When the rest of the men turned their attention back to Carrot the scufflers looked at one another, as unfortunates who had both been through the same baptism of fiery embarrassment.
Private Bourke gingerly offered Hashel a cigarette.
“It only works around him,” said Angua. “But it
does
work.”
Let it go on working, Vimes prayed.
Carrot walked over to a kneeling camel and climbed into the saddle.
“That’s ‘Evil Brother-in-Law of a Jackal,’” said Ahmed. “Jabbar’s camel! It bites everyone who tries to ride it!”
“Yes, but this is Carrot.”
“It even bites Jabbar!”
“And you notice how he knew how to get on a camel?” said Vimes. “How he wears the robes? He’s
fitting in
. The boy was raised in a dwarf mine. It took him about a month to know my own damn city better than I do.”
The camel rose. Now the flag, Vimes thought, give him the flag. When you go to war, there’s got to be a flag.
On cue, Constable Shoe passed up the spear with the tightly rolled cloth around it. The constable looked proud. He’d stitched the thing in conditions of great secrecy half an hour before. One thing about a zombie, you always knew someone who had a needle and thread.
But don’t unfurl it, Vimes thought. Don’t let them see it. It’s enough for them to know they’re marching under a flag.
Carrot brandished the spear.
“And I promise you this,” he shouted, “if we succeed, no one will remember. And if we fail, no one will forget!”
Probably one of the worst rallying cries, Vimes thought, since General Pidley’s famous “Let’s all get our throats cut, boys!” but it got a huge cheer. And once again he speculated that there was magic going on at some bone-deep level. People followed Carrot out of curiosity.
“All right, you’ve got an army, I suppose,” said Ahmed. “And now?”
“I’m a policeman. So are you. There’s going to be a crime. Saddle up, Ahmed.”
Ahmed salaamed. “I am happy to be led by a white officer, offendi.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Have you ever ridden a camel before, Sir Samuel?”
“No!”
“Ah?” Ahmed smiled faintly. “Then just give it a prod to get started. And when you want to stop, hit it very hard with the stick and shout ‘Huthuthut!’”
“You hit it with a stick to make it stop?”
“Is there any other way?” said 71-hour Ahmed.
His camel looked at Vimes, and then spat in his eye.
Prince Cadram and his generals surveyed the distant enemy, from horseback. The various Klatchian armies were drawn up in front of Gebra. Compared to them, the Ankh-Morpork regiments looked like a group of tourists who had missed their coach.
“Is that
all
?” he said.
“Yes, sire,” said General Ashal. “But, you see, they believe that fortune favors the brave.”
“That is a reason to field such a contemptible little army?”
“Ah, sire, but they believe that we will turn and run as soon as we taste some cold steel.”
The Prince looked back at the distant banners. “Why?”
“I couldn’t say, sire. It appears to be an item of faith.”
“Strange.” The Prince nodded to one of his bodyguards. “Fetch me some cold steel.”
After some hurried discussion a sword was handed up very gingerly, handle first. The prince peered at it, and then licked it with theatrical care. The watching soldiers laughed.
“No,” he said at last. “No, I have to say that I don’t feel the least apprehensive. Is this as cold as steel gets?”
“Lord Rust was probably being metaphorical, sire.”
“Ah. He is the sort who would be. Well, let us go forward and meet him. We must be civilized, after all.”
He urged his horse forward. The generals fell in behind him.
The Prince leaned down toward General Ashal again.
“And why are we going out to meet him before battle commences?”
“It’s a…it’s a goodwill gesture, sire. Warriors honoring one another.”
“But the man’s a complete incompetent!”
“Indeed, sire.”
“And we’re about to set thousands of our countrymen against one another, aren’t we?”
“Indeed, sire.”
“So what does the maniac want to do? Tell me there’s no hard feelings?”
“Broadly speaking, sire…yes. I understand the motto of his old school was ‘It matters not that you won or lost, but that you took part.’”
The Prince’s lips moved as he tried this out once or twice. Finally he said: “And, knowing this, people still take orders from him?”
“It would seem so, sire.”
Prince Cadram shook his head. We can learn from Ankh-Morpork, his father had said. Sometimes we can learn what not to do. And so he’d set out to learn.
First he’d learned that Ankh-Morpork had once ruled quite a slice of Klatch. He’d visited the ruins of one of its colonies. And so he’d found out the name of the man who had been audacious enough to do this, and had got agents in Ankh-Morpork to find out as much about him as possible.
General Tacticus, he’d been called. And Prince Cadram had read a lot and remembered everything, and “tactics” had been very, very useful in the widening of the empire. Of course, this had its own drawbacks. You had a border, and across the border came bandits. So you sent a force to quell the bandits, and in order to stamp them out you had to take over their country, and soon you had another restless little vassal state to rule. And now
that
had a border, over which came, sure as sunrise, a fresh lot of raiders. So your new
tax-paying
subjects were demanding protection from their brother raiders, neglecting to pay their taxes, and doing a little light banditry on the side. And so once again you stretched your forces, whether you wanted to or not…
He sighed. For the serious empire-builder there was no such thing as a final frontier. There was only another problem. If only people would understand…
Nor was there such a thing as a game of war. General Tacticus knew that. Learn about your opposite number,
yes
, and respect his abilities if he had them, certainly. But never pretend that afterward you were going to meet up for a drink and charge-by-charge replay.
“He could well be insane, sire,” the general went on.
“Oh, good.”
“However, I’m told that he recently referred to Klatchians as the finest soldiers in the world, sire.”
“Really?”
“He added ‘when led by white officers,’ sire.”
“Oh?”
“And we are offering him breakfast, sire. It would be most impolite of him to refuse.”
“
What
a good idea. Have we got an adequate supply of sheeps’ eyes?”
“I took the liberty of telling the cooks to save some up for this very eventuality, sire.”
“Then we must see he gets them. After all, he will be our honored guest. Well, let us do this thing properly. Please try to look as if you hate the taste of cold steel.”
The Klatchians had set up an open-sided tent on the sand between the two armies. In the welcome shade a low table had been laid. Lord Rust and his company were already waiting, and had been for more than half an hour.
They stood up and bowed awkwardly as Prince Cadram entered. Around the tent the Klatchian and Ankh-Morpork honor guards eyed one another suspiciously, every man trying to get the drop on the others.
“
Tell me…Do any of you gentleman speak Klatchian
?” said Prince Cadram, after the lengthy introductions.
Lord Rust’s grin stayed fixed. “Hornett?” he hissed.
“I’m not quite certain what he said, sir,” said the lieutenant nervously.
“I thought you knew Klatchian!”
“I can read it, sir. That’s not the same…”
“Oh, don’t worry,” said the Prince. “As we say in Klatch,
this clown’s in charge of an army
?”
Around the tent, the Klatchian generals suddenly went poker-faced.
“Hornett?”
“Er…something about…to own, to control…er…”
Cadram smiled at Lord Rust. “I’m not entirely familiar with this custom,” he said. “You often meet your enemies before battle?”
“It is considered honorable,” said Lord Rust. “I believe that on the night before the famous Battle of Pseudopolis officers from both sides attended a ball at Lady Selachii’s, for example.”
The Prince glanced questioningly at General Ashal, who nodded.
“Really? Obviously we have so much to learn. As the poet Mosheda says,
I can’t believe this man
.”
“Ah, yes,” said Lord Rust. “Klatchian is a very poetic language.”
“Excuse me, sir,” said Lieutenant Hornett.
“What is it, man?”
“There’s…er…something going on…”
There was a column of dust in the distance. Something was approaching fast.