Read Jingo for Free Online Page B

was no kind of explanation, but because the tone of voice suggested that it was , Mr. Vortin accepted it as such for fully five minutes after Carrot and Angua had left.
    “Well, that’s a nice start to the day,” said Carrot.
    “Thank you, yes, I wasn’t hurt,” said Angua.
    “It makes it all seem worthwhile, somehow.”
    “Just my hair messed up and another shirt ruined.”
    “Well done.”
    “Sometimes I might suspect that you don’t listen to anything I say,” said Angua.
    “Glad to hear it,” said Carrot.
     
    The entire Watch was mustering. Vimes looked down at the sea of faces.
    My gods, he thought. How many have we got now? A few years ago you could count the Watch on the fingers of a blind butcher’s hand, and now…
    There’s more coming in!
    He leaned sideways to Captain Carrot. “Who’re all these people?”
    “Watchmen, sir. You appointed them.”
    “Did I? I haven’t even met some of them!”
    “You signed the paperwork, sir. And you sign the wage bill every month. Eventually.”
    There was a hint of criticism in his voice. Vimes’s approach to paperwork was not to touch it until someone was shouting, and then at least there would be someone to help him sort through the stacks.
    “But how did they join?”
    “Usual way, sir. Swore them in, gave them each a helmet—”
    “Hey, that’s Reg Shoe! He’s a zombie! He falls to bits all the time!”
    “Very big man in the undead community, sir,” said Carrot.
    “How come he joined?”
    “He came round last week to complain about the Watch harassing some bogeymen, sir. He was very, er, vehement, sir. So I persuaded him that what the Watch needed was some expertise, and so he joined up, sir.”
    “No more complaints?”
    “Twice as many, sir. All from undead, sir, and all against Mr. Shoe. Funny, that.”
    Vimes gave his captain a sideways look.
    “He’s very hurt about it, sir. He says he’s found that the undead just don’t understand the difficulties of policing in a multi-vital society, sir.”
    Good gods, thought Vimes, that’s just what I would have done. But I’d have done it because I’m not a nice person. Carrot is a nice person, he’s practically got medals for it, surely he wouldn’t have…
    And he knew that he would never know. Somewhere behind Carrot’s innocent stare was a steel door.
    “ You enrolled him, did you?”
    “Nossir. You did, sir. You signed his joining orders and his kit chitty and his posting orders, sir.”
    Vimes had another vision of too many documents, hurriedly signed. But he must have signed them and they needed the men, true enough. It was just that it ought to be him who—
    “And anyone of sergeant rank or above can recruit, sir,” said Carrot, as if reading his mind. “It’s in the General Orders. Page twenty-two, sir. Just below the tea stain.”
    “And you’ve recruited…how many?”
    “Oh, just one or two. We’re still very shorthanded, sir.”
    “We are with Reg. His arms keep falling off.”
    “Aren’t you going to talk to the men, sir?”
    Vimes looked at the assembled…well, multitude. There was no other word. Well, there were plenty, but none that it would be fair to use.
    Big ones, short ones, fat ones, troll ones with the lichen still on, bearded dwarf ones, the looming pottery presence of the golem Constable Dorfl, undead ones…and even now he wasn’t certain if that term should include Corporal Angua, an intelligent girl and a very useful wolf when she had to be. Waifs and strays, Colon had said once. Waifs and bloody strays, because normal people wouldn’t be coppers.
    Technically they were all in uniform, too, except that mostly they weren’t wearing the same uniform as anyone else. Everyone had just been sent down to the armory to collect whatever fitted, and the result was a walking historical exhibit: Funny-Shaped Helmets Through the Ages.
    “Er…ladies and gentlemen—” he began.
    “Be quiet, please, and listen to Commander Vimes!” bellowed