Polly looked at the next recruit with horror that she hoped she was concealing. She hadn’t really noticed him in the gloom, because he was wearing black—not cool, styled black, but a dusty black, the kind of suit people got buried in. By the look of it, that person had been him. There were cobwebs all over it. The boy himself had stitches across his forehead.

“Your name, lad?” said Jackrum.

“Igor, thur.”

Jackrum counted the stitches.

“You know, I had a feeling it was going to be,” he said. “And I see you’re eighteen.”

“Awake!”

“Oh, gods…” Commander Samuel Vimes put his hands over his eyes.

“I beg your pardon, your grace?” said the Ankh-Morpork consul to Zlobenia. “Are you ill, your grace?”

“What’s your name again, young man?” said Vimes. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been travelling for two weeks and not getting a lot of sleep and I’ve spent all day being introduced to people with difficult names. That’s bad for the brain.”

“It’s Clarence, your grace. Clarence Chinny.”

“Chinny?” said Vimes, and Clarence read everything in his expression.

“I’m afraid so, sir,” he said.

“Were you a good fighter at school?” said Vimes.

“No, your grace, but no one could beat me over the one-hundred-yard dash.”

Vimes laughed. “Well, Clarence, any national anthem that starts ‘Awake!’ is going to lead to trouble. They didn’t teach you this in the Patrician’s office?”

“Er… no, your grace,” said Chinny.

“Well, you’ll find out. Carry on, then.”

“Yes, sir.” Chinny cleared his throat. “The Borogravian National Anthem,” he announced, for the second time.

“Awake sorry, your grace, ye sons of the Motherland