Rincewind and the Redskins – 8
Rincewind sat as inobtrusively as he could manage in the circle of chiefs and advisors. Anana Ogg gave him a great big wink and a thumbs-up, from where she was sitting with Dancing Weasel and a motley of other shamans, medicine men, and spiritual advisors.
In his tattered wizzarding robe, he felt out of place and unwilling to draw any more attention to himself than he had to. So he sat quietly, taking in the spectacle and trying to appreciate the subtleties of bonnet and beading and warpaint that distinguished, say, a Kiowa from a Cheyenne. This had to be an important meeting, he thought: there were no peace pipes circulating. Evidently they were after a quick decision this time.
He counted the chiefs. Bucket had said there were twelve tribes, right? Something was odd and out of place, then, as he was almost sure he could count thirteen. As the chiefs talked on about tactics and strategy, he recounted them. Rincewind blinked. Still thirteen. But why was the thirteenth so hard to see, as if he was going in and out of focus?
Rincewind might not have been the greatest wizard on the Disc. He'd usually be the first to admit this. But some things, any wizard knows. He forced himself to look again, really look this time.
The thirteenth chief looked very strange, when you concentrated hard enough and studied all the little things that were out of place. But it was hard, as if… something was actively fighting being looked at too hard. Oh, he was dressed like an Indian, in fringed buckskin and beads with a bare chest and feathered bonnet, but it didn't look authentic, as if he'd looked it up in a not-very-accurate book about the Plains Indians and had the kit made up from second-hand illustrations. It also looked too clean and lacked the ground-in grubbiness of hard wear and no laundries. His skin was white. Had nobody noticed? And he had a full beard and a handlebar moustache. In red. Among a people who were not able, for some reason, to grow facial hair. And nobody had noticed?
The thirteenth chief looked shifty for a moment, then identified Rincewind staring at him. He grinned.
"Rincething, isn't it? Haven't seen you since that scrap in Hunghung! You get around, don't you?"
"Oh, hi, War. You've not brought the kids this time?"
"Clancy was dead set to come. She always is, for cavalry battles. But you've got to think of their schoolin' first. Wife insisted and got her in at the Quirm Academy For Young Ladies. Advantage is, they allow gels to stable ponies there, so she's in her element!"
"Ah. The element in question, for young girls into ponies, being..."
"Something requirin' a large amount of work with a shovel, yes. "
War looked puzzled for a moment.
"Funny thing is, you can never get her to tidy her bedroom for love nor threats nor money. But give her a stable full of shit, a shovel and a wheelbarrow, and she's rollin' her sleeves up. Her mother was like that as a gel, apparently!"
"What's with the gear?" Rincewind asked, noting that time seemed to have slown and frozen around them..
War shrugged. "Just gettin' into character, old man. When you attend these little team-talks before the battle, you've got to blend in! Incidentally, have you seen old Mort anywhere? We're supposed to be teamin' up here!"
"He was here a night or two ago, looking for you." Rincewind said, helpfully, War harrumphed. Rincewind took a moment to reflect on just how much he had in common with Ridcully.
"Nodes have got screwed up again, then." War reflected. "Never could trust those damn things. Love to stick around, Rincething, but I've got an appointment at the other side's council of war. Can't be late!"
Just for a second, War shimmered and his outline became vague, then he re-appeared as a blue-uniformed cavalry officer with a yellow neckscarf. Then he vanished.
Rincewind sighed, noticed the meeting was breaking up, and wandered outside into the relatively fresher air. Perhaps it was the residual magic or perhaps his encounter with War had sensitised him, but something didn't feel right: if two of the Horsemen were here, surely the others weren't far away?
Then again, war weakens a people. While you're fighting you can't get crops in. Invading armies are like locusts, they eat everything and give nothing back. So Famine necessarily arrives after War's been and gone, and they might just leave polite notes for each other. "Hi, Famine. Have denuded several thousand square miles of all provisions, and the retreating Zlobenian army has declared a "scorched earth" policy and destroyed all growing crops to deny them to the Borogravians, so the civvies on both sides are reduced to eating grass. Down to you now, regards, War. See you in the next besieged city?"
And then after Famine weakens them further, he leaves another handover note for Pestilence. And so it goes.
Lost in thought, Rincewind walked on to where War was just about to get onto his horse and ride off, completely ignored by passing Indians despite the fact he was now wearing a cavalry officer's uniform. War nodded to him, then paused and said
"Now what's he up to…"
Rincewind followed the direction of War's glare, and spotted Pestilence, shiftily checking out the back of Dibbler's wagon.
Pestilence gave War a cheerful wave.
"I've had this really good idea. You'll like it!" he said, in a voice like every orally transmissible disease speaking all at once.
"Let's say the Indians win the fight…"
"I'm sayin' nothing!" War declared, folding his arms.
"…but if they do, right? There's a fort and a trading station on the coast. What if I whisper in the right ears that this Dibbler chap could be sold a lot of really, really, cheap blankets to sell on to the Indians, no questions asked? And what if the blankets had last been used on a smallpox ward, or some other infectious disease, and haven't been properly washed, if at all?"
Pestilence nudged War in the ribs. War pointedly stepped away.
"What do you think? It'll be a killer!"(1)
War scowled. "Bloody unsporting and devious and underhand, if you ask me! But hate it though I do, it's your department, and I can't stop you, I suppose."
Rincewind walked away to find Dibbler, leaving the two Horsemen squabbling.
The trader looked up, oblivious to the psychic disturbance going on at the back of his wagon.
"What's up, Arch-chancellor?" he asked.
"Tip for you." Rincewind said. "I've just heard there's a plan on to get you to carry poisoned blankets to the Indians. When you get back to the fort, right, you'll be offered a wagonload of blankets at a suspiciously low price. Whatever you do, get them washed and disinfected. They'll have come off a smallpox ward, that's why they're cheap. Whoever's flogging them will want you to infect the Indians."
Dibbler nodded.
"And I'll have them in the back of me wagon for a month. I might even sleep in one at night. I've never had smallpox, and I don't want to start now! Thanks for the tip!"
"Don't mention it. I got it from a very good contact."
__________________________________________---
Lieutenant Gibson still felt as if some sort of doom, some sort of black cloud, was hovering over the cavalry. He could feel it, an oppressive weight in the air like the high, humid, almost intolerable air pressure just before a really big thunderstorm. Aware that this is not a way for an army officer to behave, he sighed and went about his duties. He was aware of Top-Sergeant Williams haranguing and lambasting those of his troop who had participated in the massacre, ruthlessly re-asserting normal discipline among the men. Williams, an experienced NCO, was reminding the Troop that whilst refusing an order given by the Colonel might make things uncomfortable, the Colonel dwelt a longer way up the chain of command and wasn't present all the time and watching you like a hawk in the way he, Williams, was. So if you boys gets what you suspects is an illegal order, what I knows to be an illegal order, you has a choice. Not a nice choice, but still a choice. You obeys the illegal order and you pleases the officer who gives it. But then, you annoys me, and I am nearer. And I can make your lives Hell in a thousand inventive and creative ways, lovely boys. I has been in this man's Army for long enough to earn my three stripes down and my three stripes up and I knows many, many, things. Now for the good of your souls we is about to repeat the punishment drill – again!
Gibson smiled. The old Llamedosian NCO could be relied on to enforce discipline. He walked on to the informal officer's conference. The very informal officers' conference.
Major Reno and Captain Bentine welcomed him warmly. Gibson declined an alcoholic drink, choosing only water, reflecting that service under a commander like Rjuister drove middle-ranking officers to drink. He liked Bentine, an over-age captain with a wry and unique sense of humour that burst out at inopportune moments. Gibson guessed this was another compensatory mechanism that kept him more-or-less sane in dealing with the malevolent idiot Rjuister, whose latest brainwave involved a full-dress parade, as if they were back in barracks practicing dressage on the parade square.
"It's a square world, alright." Bentine reflected, sipping what looked like a Quirmian brandy.
"As you say, Michael" Reno agreed. "I'll have another go at persuading him that full-dress parades are a dangerous distraction while on active service. I mean, who the hell are we trying to impress here? It's highly likely we'll be fighting a battle in the next day or two!"
"Totally potty," Bentine agreed. (2)
"They say he's related to the Rusts of Ankh-Morpork." Reno mused. "That would explain a lot."
"It's also a warning." Bentine suggested. "Look at the sort of casualty lists the Rusts clock up. How do we stop ourselves from being part of a glorious Rust battle?"
Reno nodded.
"All the signs are that this is going to be a bloody unmitigated disaster. It's political, for one thing. And politics do not make for good soldiering. The priorities are too different. For one thing, that bloody maniac Verkrampt back at the fort. Look at the way he's alienating Indians who might otherwise be loyal, or at least friendly, by imposing the pass laws and segregation."
They nodded: Liutnant Verkrampt might only be a lowly Liutnant, but he belonged to BOSS, the feared Bureau of State Security, an agency charged with maintaining the security of the Boor Staadt and enforcing those laws concerning the supremacy of the white race. Technically he was only an advisor to Governor van Heerden: but this sort of advisor accumulated an unhealthy, malignant, degree of power, especially when advising an inept imbecile who was only nominally in charge of what Pratoria hoped would be its newest colony. (3)
"And out here, we're being drawn further and further out, with the Indians refusing battle and retreating in front of us, with our supply lines being pulled further and further from our base.
"That's dangerous. We already know our supply convoys are being attacked in our rear and only half of the equipment and food we need is getting to us. The General's had to shed nearly a thousand men – and the whole of the Second Cavalry - to defend the supply convoys from attack and secure the lines of communication. Which leaves us weaker out here.
"And in the meantime, there is an enemy, as yet not brought to battle, who is gathering his full strength ahead of us, and is no doubt seeking to engage us on a battlefield of his own choosing."
Reno sighed.
"We were told that this country has a hodgepodge of scattered tribes, who have spent so much time fighting each other that they'd never be able to co-ordinate an effective response, and we could defeat them piecemeal. Well, they seem to have heard about our lovely political system, and seen the wonderful advertisement for it that Verkrampt has given them, and the coloured races have decided they want no part of it. Gentlemen, we have given them a lot of good reasons to unite against us. And somebody on their side is co-ordinating a lovely strategy!"
The three officers sat in gloomy silence, hearing the bark of orders and the thundering of hooves as the men were set to training exercises and normal camp duties.
"We're going to get slaughtered, aren't we?" Bentine asked. The other two nodded, somberly.
"Not if I can help it." Reno said, firmly. "As I see it, our duty is to get as many men out alive as we can from an almost inevitable defeat. All the signs are there. Rjuister's going to go galloping in with the whole regiment against what looks to be heavy odds. I would not trust the Scalbie scouts. I think they're about to wake up and realise they're Indian. Incompetent leader, vastly outnumbered by an ably-led enemy, scouts who I believe will turn their coats at the earliest convenient opportunity, a supply problem that's only going to get worse… we need a strategy of our own. Any ideas?"
____________________________________---
Rincewind was aware, also, of a thawing of relations with the older of the twins, Two-Dogs. The morning after the firewater, Dogs had pulled Rincewind aside for a quiet word.
"Listen, I'm worried for our kid." Dogs had said. "Our mum said to me to look after him. And, well, I'm worried about the way he hits the firewater. He's got too much of a taste for it."
Rincewind nodded, thoughtfully. He recollected what had been said about Commander Vimes of the Watch.
"I've noticed too. How glum he is when he can't get the stuff. Perhaps he's, you know, just normally far more sober than the rest of us. Some people are. They need a couple of big drinks just to catch up."
"You might be right." Dogs had said. "But it don't stop there. It worries me."
Rincewind also remembered a comment in one of the Library's books on the Indian peoples. He paraphrased it for Dogs.
"It's said by people who've studied these things that Indians are far more susceptible to alcohol than a lot of other peoples. It comes from being one of the few races on the Disc who've never bothered with booze and, one or two exceptions aside, have spent thousands of years not drinking the stuff. Then all of a sudden the whole history of brewing and distilling catches up with you, and you've got no tolerance for it."
Dogs nodded.
"I hear the Iroquis do a sort of beer, back in the forests. And way over in the desert, the Yaqui discovered what you can do with tequitl cactus and basic distillation. But here, you're right, the Plains Indians never got the knack. No wonder Bull wanted all the firewater locked up! Never touched the stuff, meself. My philosophy's always been, if you can set light to it, what are you doing drinking it? But try tellin' that to Bucket."
He got up to leave.
"Thanks for the chat, Mr Rincewind."
Rincewind noticed one of the Indian girls, shyly giggling in the background. Dogs grinned and took her arm.
"This is {{Small Damson Or Perhaps A Quince}}". he said. He smiled, slightly embarrassed.
"There might be reasons to stay on for a while. You know, when the fighting's over."
Rincewind nodded, appreciatively. The Indian girl, rounded, slightly dumpy, but quite pretty, really did look like a Little Plum. (4)
(1) This was deliberately done as a means of decimating the Indian population through disease. An early example of germ warfare.
(2) It's an odd coincidence that one of Custer's officers shared a name with comedian Michael Bentine, a co-founder of the Goon Show comic troupe who revolutionised British radio comedy in the 1950's, and whose influence can be read in just about every British comedy act of the following forty years. Bentine was only a Goon for the first couple of years of the show's run – he left following acrimonious disagreements with co-founder Spike Milligan, and pursued a television career of his own. His TV comedy series, .dependent on innovative visual humour and Python-like sketches, were called "It's a Square World" and "Potty Time". While Bentine was half-Peruvian by parentage, it is not thought likely that he was related to Custer's officer – wrong end of America. But in a square world, any lunacy could happen…
(3) I'm trying to keep the political background to a minimum. But with "South Africa" having to stand in for the "United States" in this story, (Terry Pratchett having deliberately omitted a USA from the Discworld) it has to be there, and internally consistent, and necessarily different from that prevailing in the USA in the 1870's. It has to be right for the time, the people, the place and the story. In Tom Sharpe's extremely funny Piemburg farces, comic novels set in the apartheid South Africa, van Heerden is the grossly incompetent police chief, alternately bamboozled and terrified by the certifiably insane political officer Liutnant Verkrampt, a paranoid secret agent who sees Communism and black rebellion everywhere. Verkrampt is also poisonously racist and has a lot in common with Captain Findthee Swing on the Discworld. It is possible Terry based aspects of Swing on Tom Sharpe's insane South African secret policeman…
(4) Another "can't resist". In long-running British childrens' comic The Dandy, a long-standing character is the Indian Little Plum. OK, so he's male in the comic…