The Fifth Elephant by Terry Pratchett Page A

impression that the mess was normal. A desk was awash with paperwork, Mr. Sonky having followed the usual “put it down somewhere” method of filing. A bench was covered with samples of rubber, bits of sacking, large bottles of chemicals and some wooden molds that Reg refrained from looking at too closely.
    “Did you hear Corporal Littlebottom talking about that museum theft when we came on duty today, Buggy?” he said, opening a jar of yellow powder and sniffing it.
    “No.”
    “I did,” said Reg.
    He put the lid on the sulfur again and sniffed the air of the factory. It smelled of liquid rubber, which is very much like the smell of incontinent cats.
    “And some things stick in the mind,” he said. “Special job, eh?”

    It was Constable Visit-The-Infidel-With-Explanatory-Pamphlets’s week as Communications Officer, which largely meant looking after the pigeons and keeping an eye on the clacks, with of course the assistance of Constable Downspout. Constable Downspout was a gargoyle. When it came to staring fixedly at one thing, you couldn’t beat a gargoyle. The gargoyles were getting a lot of employment in the clacks industry.
    Constable Visit quite enjoyed the pigeons. He sang them hymns.
    They listened to short homilies, cocking their heads from side to side. After all, he reasoned, had not Bishop Horn preached to the mollusks of the sea? And there was no record of them actually listening, whereas he was certain that the pigeons were taking it in. And they seemed to be interested in his pamphlets on the virtues of Omnianism, admittedly as nesting material at the moment, but this was certainly a good start.
    A pigeon fluttered in as he was scraping the perches.
    “Ah, Zebedinah,” he said, lifting her up and removing the message capsule from her leg. “Well done. This is from Constable Shoe. And you shall have some corn, provided locally by Josiah Frument and Sons, Seed Merchants, but ultimately by the grace of Om.”
    There was a whir of wings and another pigeon settled on the perch. Constable Visit recognized it as Wilhelmina, one of Sergeant Angua’s pigeons.
    He removed the message capsule. The thin paper inside was tightly folded and on it someone had written CPT. CARROT, PERSONAL .
    He hesitated, then put the message from Reg Shoe into the pneumatic tube and heard the whoosh of the suction as it headed off to the main office. The other one, he decided, required a more careful delivery.
    Carrot was working in Vimes’s office but, Visit noticed, not at the Commander’s desk. Instead, he’d set up a folding table in the corner. The tottering piles of paperwork on the desk were slightly less alpine than yesterday. There were even occasional patches of desktop.
    “Personal message for you, Captain.”
    “Thank you.”
    “And Constable Shoe wants a sergeant down at Sonky’s boot factory.”
    “Did you send the message down to the office?”
    “Yes, sir. The pneumatic tube is very useful,” Visit added dutifully.
    “Commander Vimes isn’t very keen on it, but I’m sure it will eventually save us time,” said Carrot. He unfolded the note.
    Visit watched him. Carrot’s lips moved slightly as he read.
    “Where did the pigeon come from?” he said at last, screwing up the note.
    “It looks pretty worn out, sir. Not from inside the city, I’m sure.”
    “Ah. Right. Thank you.”
    “Bad news, sir?” Visit angled.
    “Just news, Constable. Don’t let me detain you.”
    “Right, sir.”
    When the disappointed Visit had gone, Carrot went and looked out of the window.
    There was a typical Ankh-Morpork street scene outside, although people were trying to separate them.
    After a few minutes he went back to his table, wrote a short note, put in into one of the little carriers and sent it away with a hiss of air.
    A few minutes later, Sergeant Colon came panting along the corridor. Carrot was very keen on modernizing the Watch, and in some strange way sending a message via the tube was so much more