3 The level of violence used by troll officers against troll prisoners appears excessive. Could you please comment upon this?
[1] Vimes maintained three trays: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy, angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about.
... and so on. Vimes read on with his mouth open. All right, the man wasn"t a copper - definitely not - but surely he had a fully functional brain. Oh, good grief, he"d even spotted the monthly discrepancy in the petty cash box! Would A. E. Pessimal understand if Vimes explained that Nobby"s services over the years more than made up for the casual petty theft, which you accepted as a kind of mild nuisance? Would that be an economic use of my time? I think not.
As he put the paper back in the tray he spotted a sheet underneath, in Cheery"s handwriting. He picked it up and read it.
Two dwarfs and one troll had handed in their badges that morning, citing "family reasons". Damn. That was seven officers lost this week. Bloody Koom Valley, it got everywhere. Oh, it couldn"t be fun, heavens knew, being a troll holding the line against a bunch of your fellow trolls and defending a dwarf like the late Hamcrusher. It probably wasn"t any funnier being a dwarf hearing that some troll street gang beat up your brother because of what that idiot had said. Some people would be asking: whose side are you on? If you"re not for us, you"re against us. Huh. If you"re not an apple, you"re a banana...
Carrot came in quietly and placed a plate on the desk. "Angua told me all about it," he said. "Well done, sir."
"What do you mean, well done?" said Vimes, looking at his healthy sandwich lunch. "I nearly started a war!"
"Ah, but they didn"t know you were bluffing."
"I probably wasn"t: Vimes carefully lifted the top of the bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich and smiled inwardly. Good old Cheery. She knew what a Vimes BIT was all about. It was about having to lift up quite a lot of crispy bacon before you found the miserable skulking vegetables. You might never notice them at all.
"I want you to take Angua down there with you again," he said. "And ... yes, Lance-Constable Humpeding. Our little Sally. Just the job for a vampire who fortuitously has arrived in the nick of time, eh? Let"s see how good she is."
"Just those two, sir?"
"Er, yes. They both have very good night vision, yes?" Vimes looked down at his sandwich and mumbled, "We can"t take any artificial light down there."
"A murder investigation in the dark, sir?"
"I had no choice!" said Vimes hotly. "I know a sticking point when I see one, captain. No artificial light. Well, if they want to play silly buggers, I"m their boy. You know about mines, and both the ladies have got night vision built in. Well, the vampire has, and Angua can practically see with her nose. So that"s it. Do the best you can. The place is full of those damn glow beetles. They should help."
"They"ve got vurms?" said Carrot. "Oh. Well, I know some tricks there, sir.
"Good. They say a big troll did it and ran away. Make of that what you will.,
"There might be some protests about Sally, sir," said Carrot. "Why? Will they spot she"s a vampire?"
"No, Sir, I don"t think they-"
"Then don"t tell "em," said Vimes. "You"re the ... smelter, it"s up to you what, er, tools you use. Seen this?" He waved the report about the three officers he was trying not to think of as deserters.
"Yes, Sir. I was meaning to talk to you about that. It might help if we changed the patrols a bit," said Carrot.
"How do you mean?,
"Er, it would be quite easy to arrange the patrol schedules so that trolls and dwarfs don"t have to go on the beat together, sir. Um ... some of the lads say they"d be a bit happier if we could. .
Carrot let the sentence die away in the stony glare.
"We"ve never paid any attention to an officer"s species when we do the roster, captain," said Vimes coldly. "Except for the gnomes, of course.
"There"s your precedent, then-" Carrot began.
"Don"t be daft. A typical gnome room is about twice the size of a shoebox, captain! Look, you can see this idea is nuts. Dangerous nuts, too. We"d have to patrol troll with troll, dwarf with dwarf and human with human-"
"Not necessarily, sir. Humans could patrol with either of the others."
Vimes rocked his chair forward. "No, they couldn"t! This is not about common sense, this is about fear! If a troll sees a dwarf and a human patrolling together, he"ll think: "There"s the enemy, two against one." Can"t you see where this is going? When a copper"s in a tight corner and blows his whistle for back-up, I don"t want him demanding that when it arrives it"s the right damn shape!" He calmed down a little, opened his notebook, and tossed it on to the desk. "And talking of shapes, do you know what this means? I spotted it in the mine, and a dwarf called Helmclever scrawled it in some spilt coffee, and you know what? I think he was only half aware that he"d done it."
Carrot picked up the notebook and regarded the sketch solemnly for a moment.
"Mine sign, sir," he said. "It means "the Following Dark"."