BThe man rolled over in bed and opened his eyes. He looked around the room, 'hmmm, a tent. I live in a tent do I?' He swung his legs to the ground, a blue and white uniform was neatly laid out on a nearby camp stool. 'Ah, I'm a soldier am I? In whose army? Oh well, no doubt it'll come to me.' He looked at the label inside the collar of the shirt. 'S. Vimes. Yep, that's me all right.' But the shoulder boards on the coat stopped him cold. 'Colonel! I'm a colonel? But I don't like officers!' Somehow he was quite sure of that, however Lancre-cheesed his memory.

He buckled the sword belt round his waist and strode outside. Rows of neat white tents stretched away in straight rows centered on a flagpole. The flag flapping overhead was blue with a big white question mark between a one and a three. He glanced at the flash on his sleeve. Yep, they matched. He was in the right place, wherever this was. Not his usual place though. He vaguely remembered a lot of sand and a mudbrick fort. While there was plenty of sand here too it was the wrong color and consistency and there were a whole lot more people. Hundreds - maybe thousands - of tents were laid out in neat squares beyond the bounds of his own camp with dozens of flags flying over them. They seemed to be part of an army - and that wasn't usual.

A small, balding man of indeterminate age sat at a table under the flag, his permanently worried baby face frowning at the sheaf of papers in his hand. S. Vimes walked over to him.

He looked up. "Good morning, Colonel Vimes."

"Good morning," he said. Read the sign on the desk. "Adjutant, the day I make general I want you to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

"Yes sir," the man answered. "I've made a note of that."

"Good. Now, where in the hells are we and who are all these people?"

"We're at Gebra, sir. That's Mount Gebra there, those walls are the city and the sea is that way. We are part of the army of Klatch, sir, assembled to repel the invader."

Vimes lit an evil smelling D'reg cigar. "And who would that be?"

"Ankh-Morpork, sir."

"Ah. In desperate need of sand are they?"

The Adjutant checked his copious notes. "Something to do with an island, sir. Place called Leshp."

Vimes shrugged. "Ours is not to reason why. I suppose we've got orders?"

"Yessir, here they are, sir." The Adjutant shuffled paper and handed over a clutch of pages.

Vimes gave them a quick scan. "I see we've drawn scout duty, big surprise. Map? Oh, here it is. Hmmm....." He sank into a brief brown study. "Right. Officer's call in five, Adjutant, we've got work to do."

Five minutes later Vimes was facing a double row of slightly bewildered men wearing major, captain and lieutenant pips. "Good morning, gentlemen. In case you're not up to speed yet we are the 13th Regiment of the Klatchian Foreign Legion and we've got a job of work to do." A few men nodded, a few looked relieved, the majority continued bewildered.

"Everybody got his notebook?" This time all the white kepis nodded, pencils poised. Vimes turned to the map and tapped a rather nice little drawing of a fort with his pointer. "That's Gebra." The pointer shifted to a blue square at the far end of a series of colored blocks. "This is us, way out on the right wing. Command says the enemy, that's this black oblong here, is sending out skirmishing parties and we've drawn the short stick and get to do something about it. Major Red!"

The mesmerized ranks stirred and looked at each other uncertainly. Vimes sighed, "Check your sleeves, who's got the Big Red One and major pips?" A hand rose. "Right. You take Red companies One, Three and Five hubwards. Major Yellow," he said and leveled his pointer at a stocky young fellow in the front row," you take your One, Three and Five rimwards. Fan out in a skirmish line, no more than a quarter of a mile between platoons. Got that?" Pencils scribbled frantically, stabbed little full stops and assorted eyes looked up. The bewilderment was gone. Fuzzed memories had cleared and slotted neatly into place.

"Good. I'll take Red and Yellow Twos and Fours down the center, and we'll see what we catch."

-----

"Excuse me," Vimes said politely to the sand colored man in sand colored robes before him. "What did you say this village was called?"

"Beersheepa, Offendi."

"Good name." Vimes looked around at the sand colored hovels with more sand colored people peering nervously out windows and doors at him. "Have you seen any other soldiers this morning? Foreign ones I mean."

"Just you, Offendi."

"Good," Vimes was saying when a scout hurried up the sand drifted excuse for a street, visibly excited.

He slid to a halt, saluted, "Colonel, enemy cavalry approaching, sir!"

"Horse cavalry, on this sand?"

"Yessir!"

"Damnfools. All right, let's see them off shall we?" He turned to his bugler. "Sound the rally." The boy looked at him uncertainly. "Tira-Tira-Tira-Lirra-Lou," Vimes prompted.

Legionaries wearing Big Red Ones and Big Yellow Twos slid and staggered over the dunes from all directions to form a volley line three deep just clear of Beersheepa.

"FIRST LINE ON YOUR STOMACHS!" the Regimental Sergeant Major bawled. "SECOND ON YOUR KNEE, THIRD ON YOUR FLAT FEET! GET RID OF THAT CHEROOT, LEGIONNAIRE, THIS AIN'T NO DAMN PICNIC! DRESS THAT LINE! I SAID DRESS THAT LINE!"

Vimes took up his own position in the center rear beside the flag and drew his saber. The junior officers, a captain and several lieutenants, formed on him unsheathing their own blades. Steel glinted in the hot sunlight. Plumed helmets bobbed above the dunes in front of the line, followed by the heads of horses blowing hard as they wadded fetlock deep in the soft sand.

"Hold your shot," Vimes ordered. "Give him a chance to think the better of it."

"HOLD YER SHOT!" the Sergeant Major shouted, and was echoed by sergeants up and down the lines:

"Hold yer shot!"

"Wait fer orders!"

"The Colonel said 'Hold!' Stinky!

"That Man! Do you still have your safety on?"

Across the way the enemy horse staggered into a ragged line. "Sir, I think they mean to charge us," said the Adjutant.

"Sure looks like it, the godsdamned fool!" Vimes threw away his cigar, raised his saber high.

"Ready."

"READY!"

The line of horsemen began to flounder down the dunes, about half the horses went down.

"Aim."

"AIM!"

Two thirds of the cavalry were down now, men and mounts in tangled heaps. The few still upright kept coming.

"Loose!"

"LOOSE!"

Steel quarrels flew knocking the handful of remaining horsemen out of their saddles. Second and third volleys passed over the heads of the recumbent and cursing enemy to bury themselves in the sand well beyond.

"Cease!"

"CEASE!"

The legionnaires completed reloading and stood at ready. Vimes walked through his lines to the downed pennon and the elegantly uniformed officer lying beside it. A quarrel had gone clean through his gilded toy of a breastplate. His helmet had rolled a few feet away revealing a young, astonished face.

The Colonel looked bleakly down at him. "A fool boy, I should have known." He raised his voice, "Oi! Who's in command here?"

By now the fallen troopers were on their feet, except for a handful of dead and rather more wounded. All those with their eyes open were staring at Vimes with a sort of glazed shock. He was not unfamiliar with that look but usually he got it when he was covered with blood and waving a saber in one hand and a pike in the other. He glanced down at himself. Nope, no blood, and slid his saber back into its scabbard. "I want to know who's in command. Now!"

A trooper wearing corporal's stripes looked around uncertainly, then raised a slightly shaking hand. "I think I am, sir."

Vimes nailed him with a look. "I am prepared to accept your surrender."

"S-sir?"

The man was clearly in shock. Vimes gentled his tone. "I really do advise you to surrender, Corporal."

"Oh! Oh, yessir!" Sword belts hit the ground.

"Wise decision, Corporal. Legionnaires Stand Down!"

"STAND DOWN!"

"Stand Down!"

"Stand Down, don't mean you can smoke you horrible man!"

"That Man! What did I tell you about that safety?"

Vimes rolled his eyes upward. Good old That Man. Him he could remember. He only wished he could forget! "Your wounded will be seen to," he told the trembling corporal. "Surgeon forward!"

"SURGEON FORWARD!" The Sergeant Major echoed deafeningly. Vimes winced. The man had lungs like a bellow, and never spoke below one.

---

The man opened his eyes and rolled over in bed. He looked around the room. It was a tent. 'I live in a tent do I?' He swung his legs to the ground. The blue and white uniform laid out on a nearby camp stool caught his eye. 'Ah, I'm a soldier am I? In whose army? Oh well, no doubt it'll come to me.' He picked up the shirt and looked inside the collar. 'S. Vimes. 'Yep, that's me all right.' But the shoulder boards on the coat stopped him cold. 'Colonel! I'm a colonel? but I don't like officers!' Somehow he was quite sure of that, however Lancre-cheesed his memory.

He buckled on his sword and went outside. Rows of neat white tents stretched away in straight rows centered on a flagpole. The flag flapping overhead was blue with a big white question mark between a one and a three. He glanced at the flash on his sleeve. Yep, they matched. He was in the right place, wherever this was. He saw hundreds - maybe thousands - of tents laid out in neat squares beyond the bounds of his own camp with dozens of flags flying over them. Seemed they were part of an army. That was interesting

A small, balding man of indeterminate age sat at a table under the flag, his permanently worried baby face frowning at the sheaf of papers in his hand. S. Vimes walked over to him.

He looked up. "Good morning, Colonel Vimes."

"Good morning," he said and read the sign on the desk. "Adjutant, the day I make general I want you to shoot me and put me out of my misery.

"Yes sir," the man answered. "I've made a note of that."

"Good. So, what gives, Adjutant?"

"We're at Gebra, sir, part of the army of Klatch assembled to repel the invader."

Vimes lit an evil smelling D'reg cigar. "And who would that be again?"

"Ankh-Morpork, sir."

"Right. Something to do with an island isn't it?"

"That's right, sir." The Adjutant shuffled his notes. "We've got prisoners, sir."

"Dear me. Under guard I trust?"

"Oh yes, sir. And enemy wounded, sir."

"Any of our own?"

"No, sir."

"Good. We seem to be doing well, Adjutant."

"We usually do, sir," the man answered with a look that made it a compliment.

Vimes cleared his throat, embarrassed. "So, orders?"

The Adjutant handed over a few sheets. "There's going to be a battle, sir."

"That's nice," Vimes said absently, reading.

----

Figures tiny with distance rode from both battle lines to a tent set up in no-man's land. Colonel Vimes lowered his spy-glass. "Looks like there's going to be a parley."

"STAND EASY, SIR?" the Sergeant Major bellowed.

Vimes winced and sidled a few steps away. "Yes."

"STAND EASY!"

"Does that mean there may not be a battle, sir?" Major Red asked.

"I certainly hope so," Vimes replied. "I don't fancy fighting under the noon sun." There was a reason D'regs always attacked at dawn. He lit a cigar.

It was half smoked when the Adjutant said, "Sir? Something seems to be happening down there."

Vimes put his glass to his eye. A small party of D'regs on camelback were charging across the sands towards the parley tent. Under a white flag? "Somebody's in a big hurry to surrender," he muttered. Gods only knew who. A party detached itself from each army, riding to intercept, missed and collided with each other. Vimes winced. "That's gotta hurt." The eager surrenderers pulled to a sliding halt in the shade of the parley tent, dismounted and went inside.

"What's going on, sir?" Major Yellow asked.

"Damned if I know," Vimes answered, eye still glued to his spy glass.

After a long moment a messenger hurried from the parley tent running back to the Klatchian lines. Another came out and went towards the Enemy. Then a tall, white robed figure emerged from the tent followed by several others. Red hair flamed in the hot sunlight. He began to shout, moving slowly between the lines.

A runner came panting up to Vimes, eyes slightly wild. "Orders to stand down, sir. We're under arrest."

"Beg pardon?"

"Under arrest, sir."

"By whom?"

"The Ankh-Morpork City Watch, sir!"

Vimes stared at the man, then turned to his Adjutant. "Can they do that?"

"Orders are to stand down," the messenger repeated.

The Adjutant shrugged. "I guess they can, sir."

"Ours is not to reason why," Vimes muttered to himself. "Tell the men to stand down, Sergeant Major."

"STAND DOWN!"

The big redheaded man in white robes finally came within earshot of the Legionnaire's position. "I am Captain Carrot of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch!" he was shouting. "You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say will be taken down in my notebook and used at your trial! You have the right to trial by combat! You have the right to trial by ordeal! Personally I don't recommend either! You have the right to demand the presence of a doctor at your questioning! Do you understand what I've just told you? Sound off! Do you understand?"

Vimes exchanged a helpless look with his officers. "Tell the man yes, Sergeant Major."

"YES!"

"Excellent!" The redheaded man turned back towards the center of the lines.

"Adjutant, have we ever been arrested before?" Vimes asked.

The little man riffled through his notebooks. "Not so far as I can see, sir."

Vimes shrugged. "Oh well, not our problem is it? Issue the Orakh ration, Sergeant Major, and have the men brew up some coffee."

"YES, SIR!"

-----

Vimes had sipped enough Klatchian coffee to be only slightly mellow by the time word of Ankh-Morpork's unconditional surrender reached the far right flank. The Legionnaires were in fact all that was left of that wing of the army, the desert levies having decided to go home since nothing seemed to be happening.

"So, Ankh-Morpork arrests us all, then surrenders," Vimes mused. "Does that strike you as slightly odd, Captain, or is it just me?"

The officer of Prince Cadram's Own who'd brought the word shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. "Nobody can understand it, Colonel. But they say all Morporkians are mad."

"Seems like they say right. What should I do about my prisoners?"

The captain shook his head. "No idea, sir."

Vimes got carefully to his feet and took a few experimental steps forward. Yep, he could walk straight. "I guess I'd better go and ask then."

The center of the line had become a dusty scrum of struggling figures, brightly colored uniforms now an identical shade of sand. Vimes might have mistaken it for a battle if he hadn't spotted the ball sailing through the air. The red haired man in white strode through the chaos blowing a whistle. Vimes circled round to get to the parley tent. Voices rose and fell inside. He stepped through the unguarded flap and came to attention, waiting to be noticed.

He was. Prince Cadram's wandering eye froze on him. General Ashal turned to look and fell silent. The tall thin man who somehow managed to look both dignified and intimidating in a dusty white robe and red fez joined in the group stare. It was that glazed look again, Vimes realized, and damn it he didn't have a drop of blood on him nor a weapons either.

He saluted. "Sir! Colonel Vimes of the Foreign Legion, sir! Requesting orders on the disposal of prisoners, sir!"

There was a long and tingling silence broken at last by the thin man in the fez. "Colonel Vimes," he said carefully, as if tasting the name. "You have prisoners do you?"

"Yes, sir. Company Bravo of Lord Selachi's Hussars. We had a small affray with them yesterday. I regret to report that Captain de Worde and six of his troopers lost their lives. Fourteen wounded, all doing well, sir."

"I'm sure they are, Klatchian doctors are justly famous for their skill."

"Surgeon's an Omnian, sir. Says he's got Om on his side."

"Ah." The man in the fez looked at Prince Cadram. "May I assume any prisoners will now be released?"

"You may, Lord Vetinari," General Ashal answered.

He unfolded himself from his chair. "I believe we've covered everything. With your permission, Your Highness, I will accompany Colonel Vimes back to his unit to claim our distressed citizens."

"That will be fine," said General Ashal.

"Colonel." Lord Vetinari led the way out of the tent. He eyed Vimes thoughtfully as they circled the football scrum. "May I ask why you joined the Klatchian Legion, Colonel?"

"To forget, sir," Vimes answered automatically, still wondering about those odd looks.

"Forget what?"

"No idea, sir. I've forgotten. I hope it wasn't a woman, though. That'd be so damned cliche."

"Yes it would." Vimes was uncomfortably conscious of a long, thoughtful scrutiny. Finally Vetinari said, "I believe you have family in Ankh-Morpork, Colonel. You might consider looking them up. I suspect you will find Klatch far from hospitable from now on."