Jingo

“But I thought we agreed that the bit over there was theirs, and—”

Jackson had finally remembered how to propel a raft with one oar.

“That wasn't an agreement,” he said, creating foam as the oar thrashed back and forth, “that was just an… an arrangement. It's not as if they created the driftwood. It just turned up. Accident of geography. It is a natural resource, right? It don't belong to anyone—”

The raft hit something which made a metallic sound. But they were still a hundred yards from the rocks.

Something else, long and bent at the end, rose up with a creaking noise. It twisted around until it pointed at Jackson.

“Excuse me,” it said, in a tinny yet polite voice, “but this is Leshp, isn't it?”

Jackson made a sound in his throat.

“Only,” the thing went on, “the water's a little cloudy and I thought we might have been going the wrong way for the last twenty minutes.”

“Leshp!” squeaked Jackson, in an unnaturally high-pitched voice.

“Ah, good. Thank you so much. Good day to you.”

The appendage sank slowly into the sea again. The last sounds from it, erupting on the surface in a cloud of bubbles, were, “…don't forget to put the cork in– You've forgot to put the cor–”

The bubbles stopped.

After a while Les said, “Dad, what was—?”

“It wasn't anything!” snapped his father. “That sort of thing doesn't happen!”

The raft shot forward. You could have waterski'd behind it.

Another important thing about the Boat, thought Sergeant Colon gloomily as they slipped back into a blue twilight, was that you couldn't bale out the bilges. It was the bilges.

He was pedalling with his feet in water and he was suffering simultaneously from claustrophobia and agoraphobia. He was afraid of everything in here and everything out there at the same time. Plus, there were unpleasantnesses out there, moving past as the Boat drifted down the wall of rock. Feelers waved. There were claws. Things scuttled into the waving weeds. Giant clams watched Sergeant Colon with their lips.

The Boat creaked.

“Sarge,” said Nobby, as they looked out at the wonders of the deep.

“Yes, Nobby?”

“You know they say every tiny part of your body is replaced every seven years?”

“A well-known fact,” said Sergeant Colon.

“Right. So… I've got a tattoo on my arm, right? Had it done eight years ago. So… how come it's still there?”

Giant seaweeds winnowed the gloom.

“Interesting point,” quavered Colon. “Er…”

“I mean, OK, new tiny bits of skin float in, but that means it ought to be all new and pink by now.”

A fish with a nose like a saw swam past.

In the middle of all his other fears, Sergeant Colon tried to think fast.

“What happens.” he said, “Is that all the blue skin bits are replaced by other blue skin bits. Off'f other people's tattoos.”

“So… I've got other people's tattoos now?”

“Er… yes.”

“Amazing. 'cos it still looks like mine. 's got the crossed daggers and ‘WUM’.”

“Wum?”

“It was gonna be ‘Mum’ but I passed out and Needle Ned didn't notice I was upside down.”

“I should've thought he'd notice that…”

“He was pissed too. C'mon, sarge, you know it's not a proper tattoo unless no one can remember how it got there.”

Leonard and the Patrician were staring out at the submarine landscape.

“What're they looking for?” said Colon.

“Leonard keeps talking about hieroglyphs,” said Nobby. “What're they, sarge?”

Colon hesitated, but not for long. “A type of mollusc, corporal.”

“Cor, you know everything, sarge,” said Nobby admiringly. “That's what hieroglyphs are, is it? So, if we go any deeper, they'll be loweroglyphs?”

There was something slightly off-putting about Nobby's grin. Sergeant Colon decided to go for broke.

“Don't be daft, Nobby. ‘Loweroglphys if you go lower…’ Oh my me.”

“Sorry, sarge.”

“Everyone knows you don't get loweroglyphs in these waters.”

A couple of Curious Squid peered at them, curiously.

Jenkins's ship was a floating wreck.

Several sails were in tatters. Rigging and other string that Vimes refused to learn the nautical names for covered the deck and trailed in the water.

Such sail as remained was moving them along in the brisk breeze.

Atop the mast the lookout cupped his hands around his mouth and leaned down.

“Land ahoy!”

“Even I can see that,” said Vimes. “Why does he have to shout?”

“It's lucky,” said Jenkins. He squinted into the haze.

“But your friend ain't heading for Gebra. Wonder where he's going?”

Vimes stared at the pale yellow mass on the horizon, and then up at Carrot.

“We'll get her back, don't worry,” he said.

“I wasn't actually worrying, sir. Although I am very concerned,” said Carrot.

“Er… right…” Vimes waved his arms helplessly, “Er… everyone fit and well? The men in good heart, are they?”

“It would help morale no end if you were to say a few words, sir.”

The monstrous regiment of watchmen had lined up on the deck, blinking in the sunshine. Oh, dear. Round up the unusual suspects. One dwarf, one human who was brought up as a dwarf and thinks like a manual of etiquette, one zombie, one troll, me and, oh no, one religious fanatic—