Night Watch полностью

“Some of that furniture looks very dirty,” said Mrs Rutherford. “And aren't those beer barrels?”

“Yes, ma'am, but they're empty ones,” said Vimes.

“Are you sure? I refuse to cower behind alcohol! I have never approved of alcohol, and neither has Rutherford!”

“I can assure you, ma'am, that any beer barrel in the presence of my men for any length of time will be empty,” said Vimes. “You may rest assured on that score.”

“And are your men sober and clean-living?” the woman demanded.

“Whenever no alternative presents itself, ma'am,” said Vimes. This seemed acceptable. Mrs Rutherford was like Rust in that respect. She listened to the tone of voice, not the words.

“I think perhaps it would be a good idea, dear, if we made haste to—” Rutherford began.

“Not without Father!” said his wife.

“No problem, ma'am,” said Vimes. “Where is he?”

“On our barricade, of course! Which was, let me tell you, a rather better barricade altogether.”

“Jolly good, ma'am,” said Vimes. “If he'd like to come over here we'll—”

“Erm, you don't quite understand, sir,” murmured Rutherford. “He is, erm, on the barricade…”

Vimes looked at the other barricade, and then looked harder. It was just possible to see, near the top of the piled-up furniture, an overstuffed armchair. Further examination suggested that it was occupied by a sleeping figure in carpet slippers.

“He's very attached to his armchair,” sighed Rutherford.

“It's going to be an heirloom,” said his wife. “Be so kind as to send your young men to collect our furniture, will you? And be careful with it. Put it at the back somewhere where it won't get shot at.”

Vimes nodded at Sam and a couple of the other men as Mrs Rutherford picked her way over the debris and headed for the Watch House.

“Is there going to be any fighting?” said Mr Rutherford anxiously.

“Possibly, sir.”

“I'm not very good at that sort of thing, I'm afraid.”

“Don't worry about that, sir.” Vimes propelled the man over the barricade, and turned to the rest of the little group. He'd been aware of eyes boring into him, and now he traced the rays back to source, a young man with black trousers, a frilly shirt and long curly hair.

“This is a ruse, isn't it,” said the man. “You'll get us in your power and we'll never be seen again, eh?”

“Stay out then, Reg,” said Vimes. He cupped his hands and turned back to the Whalebone Lane barricade. “Anyone else wants to join us had better get a move on!” he shouted.

“You don't know that's my name!” said Reg Shoe.

Vimes stared into the big protruding eyes. The only difference between Reg now and the Reg he'd left back in the future was that Constable Shoe was rather greyer and was held together in places by stitches. Zombiehood would come naturally to Reg. He was born to be dead. He believed so strongly in things that some kind of inner spring kept him going. He'd make a good copper. He didn't make a very good revolutionary. People as meticulously fervent as Reg got real revolutionaries worried. It was the way he stared.

“You're Reg Shoe,” he said. “You live in Whalebone Lane.”

“Aha, you've got secret files on me, eh?” said Reg, with terrifying happiness.

“Not really, no. Now if you'd be so good—”

“I bet you've got a big file on me a mile long,” said Reg.

“Not a whole mile, Reg, no,” said Vimes. “Listen, Reg, we—”

“I demand to see it!”

Vimes sighed. “Mr Shoe, we don't have a file on you. We don't have a file on anyone, understand? Half of us can't read without using a finger. Reg, we are not interested in you.”

Reg Shoe's slightly worrying eyes remained fixed on Vimes's face for a moment, and then his brain rejected the information as contrary to whatever total fantasy was going on inside.

“Well, it's no good you torturing me because I won't reveal any details about my comrades in the other revolutionary cells!” said Reg.

“Okay. I won't, then. Now perhaps—”

“That's how we work, see? None of the cadres knows about the other ones!”

“Really. Do they know about you?” said Vimes.

For a moment, Reg's face clouded. “Pardon?”

“Well, you said you don't know about them,” said Vimes. “So…do they know about you?” He wanted to add: you're a cell of one, Reg. The real revolutionaries are silent men with poker-player eyes and probably don't know or care if you exist. You've got the shirt and the haircut and the sash and you know all the songs, but you're no urban guerrilla. You're an urban dreamer. You turn over rubbish bins and scrawl on walls in the name of The People, who'd clip you round the ear if they found you doing it. But you believe.

“Ah, so you're a secret operative,” he said, to get the poor man off the hook.

Reg brightened. “That's right!” he said. “The people are the sea in which the revolutionary swims!”

“Like swordfishes?” Vimes tried.

“Pardon?”

And you're a flounder, thought Vimes. Ned's a revolutionary. He knows how to fight and he can think, even if he is on the skew. But Reg, you really ought to be indoors…