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‘Well, Mister Nesmith, I congratulate you for your clean and well-spoken children, but I’m sorry to say they came very close to at least disabling the new express to Uberwald.’
Nesmith’s face went grey as he contemplated a future with no work and no pension and quite probably a criminal record. Greasy tears flowed out of his eyes and he said, ‘Anyone hurt, sir? If anyone’s hurt I’ll tan their hides.’
‘Some broken crockery, and there’s work to be done to get the track cleared before we can leave.’
The big round face was contorted. ‘I can help there, sir, I can help, but I’ll tan their hides for them, you see if I don’t.’
‘No, you will not, Mister Nesmith, I’ll see you pay for it if you do, indeed I will. Look, they could have caused a terrible accident, but the important thing is that they didn’t. They wanted to appear brave, as far as I can see, and you can’t blame kids for that. However, the railway isn’t a playground. Do you understand me, Mister Nesmith? Now, if I were you I’d get out my jim crow, off shift or not, and help clear the rails. Oh, and treasure your eldest daughter: you might be grateful for her imagination one day.’
Ohulan Cutash beckoned. Moist knew it as a likeable kind of place: a little market town with the usual hinterland of farmers and lumberjacks. Some mining too, dwarfs and humans quite often these days working on the same mine and even the same seams. It was big enough to have a mayor and sensible enough to have a very good tavern called the Fiddler’s Riddle. And apparently it was a place where the current unpleasantness had not yet reached.
What Moist hadn’t expected to find, as they pulled up to the platform just past midnight, was the brass band and the flags and the Morris dancing and the fun-fair, which it appeared had been organized to welcome the first proper train to arrive at the newly constructed station and had been going on for hours.
And as soon as Iron Girder came to a stop with her last hiss, Mr Skiller, the landlord of the Fiddler’s Riddle, who turned out also to be the town mayor, began an address offering the freedom of his little town to everyone on the train. Although of course it wasn’t a little town, oh indeed not, to its mayor. It was chasing Ankh-Morpork. A little part of Moist’s brain laid a bet with itself that very shortly the words ‘on the map’ were going to be uttered.
And indeed, the mayor, large and florid as a proper mayor should be, said as Moist stepped down, minding the gap, ‘This will put Ohulan Cutash on the map and no mistake. We’re already breaking ground for a much bigger tavern with facilities.’ He looked at Moist solemnly and said, ‘You have to have facilities, these days, you know. We paid for our own clacks tower. We’re very modern
here, that’s for sure.’
Moist looked around at the cobbled town square that lay a short distance from the platform. It would have been better if it hadn’t been the middle of the night, but the mayor saw no problem with this and cheerfully pointed out to the now clustering passengers the locations of the wonderful things they would be able to see when it was daylight.
And it nearly broke Moist’s heart to say to the man, ‘I’m afraid we have to go very soon. Schedules, you know.’
And indeed, he could see the water crane pumping and could hear the rattle of the coal being delivered to the engine, but nothing could stop the mayor in his rampant hospitality.
‘But we’ve arranged for a mayoral banquet.’
‘Ah … will you excuse me for a moment, mister mayor?’
Moist had a private word with Simnel about arrangements for the next leg of the journey and then with Vimes, who nodded and said quietly, ‘Sensible. I wouldn’t mind eating off a plate that wasn’t rattling. There’s no harm in pandering to a little civic pride. The mayor is a decent cove and they’ve got a Watch of sorts. Two watchmen, not too bad in the circumstances, and I know that because I trained them.’
Moist came back to the reception committee, put his arm around the ebullient red-faced mayor and said, ‘Well, sir, I’m sure we can spare the time for a modest banquet before the dreadful pressures of the timetable force us onwards.’
They left Simnel at the station with his fellow engineers to await the arrival of the back-up Flyer, which had left Zemphis a few hours after Iron Girder. The King and Aeron remained ensconced on the train, safely guarded in the armoured carriage, busy with paperwork and plans for their arrival in Uberwald. The rest of the party followed the mayor across the square to his hostelry.
The town really had tried. Something about the mayor’s conviction that the world revolved around their town, or would do if it ever came there, had dribbled into the minds of his ratepayers, who now set to warming up marvellous dishes they had expected to be serving several hours before. And were very understanding, especially after Moist’s description of the fight along the Paps. Admittedly he had put a certain amount of shine on the episode; surely that was what shine was for? And it permeated, even into the consciousness of those who had travelled, and at one point Of the Twilight the Darkness actually stood up and made a bow.
And Moist couldn’t help himself and pointed at the goblin, saying, ‘Of the Twilight the Darkness and his gallant fellows fought alongside Commander Vimes, with great courage.’
And then Moist glanced at the commander, who puffed his cigar and said, ‘Excellent fighters, to a goblin.’
‘Oh, we like goblins,’ said the mayor. ‘They run our clacks tower. And do you know, the snail infestation in my Porraceous Sprouter patch has completely gone since they moved in.’
And there was another toast to the clacks at this point with a side order of goblins. By the time they had all processed back to Iron Girder, she had been covered with petals by the virgins of the town.fn74 The Flyer had been and gone some time before, with its crew of engineers supplemented by Cheery Littlebottom – once more playing decoy – and other good fighters. It was even now on the track to Slake, acting as a pathfinder for Iron Girder to confuse the enemy.
As Iron Girder steamed out of Ohulan Cutash, most people headed off to sleep. Moist had loaned the sleeping compartment assigned to him to two of those wounded in the battle and was now bunking down in the guard’s van, comfortable enough when you were dog-tired and Detritus wasn’t snoring. All Moist’s life he’d managed to find a way of sleeping in just about every circumstance and, besides, the guard’s van was somehow the hub of the train; and although he didn’t know how he did it, he always managed to sleep with half of one ear open. And now he savoured the familiar sounds of the journey, the rocking soothing him right up until somewhere down the line when he was catapulted into the real world by the screech once more of the locomotive’s wheels in distress, and the squealing of brakes in torment.
It was still dark outside. Moist drowsily stumbled across the flatbed as doors were being opened and feet were running in the carriage ahead and reached the armoured compartment of the King. It was empty.
There was a dwarf guard, who said, ‘The King went to the footplate.’ The dwarf looked ashamed. ‘I tried to persuade him to let me go with him, but what can you do? He is the King.’
Moist said, ‘Don’t worry, just keep this station. I’ll go and see what’s happening.’
There was a drill for this, he knew, and where was the King? That was the trouble with royalty. However decent they were, and understanding, they were also likely to think that such things as security arrangements were for other people.
Frantically searching, Moist finally dropped down on to the track and ran along to the engine, where he found the King talking to Dick Simnel on the footplate and getting covered in smuts.
Pale flames were visible ahead on the track and Simnel’s expression was grave.
