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No one said anything. The lilac pinned to their uniforms said it all.
Sir Samuel Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch stood in the door of his office, watching the hustle and bustle of the Watch’s morning routine and the city beyond. On the surface, it was nothing more than another day, another warm, humid late-May morning. But if you looked, really looked, then you could see the undercurrents of well-hidden pain, old scars slightly nearer the surface than usual. Grief made Fred Colon move stiffly, made Nobby Nobbs even more hunched than usual. Vimes himself made sure to be straight-backed and feet firmly grounded - it didn’t do for the Watchmen to see their leader anything less than in control.
But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t acutely conscious of the slight weight of the single sprig of lilac pinned to his shirt, as if it weighed a hundred times more than any flower should. He could feel it through the fabric, through the breastplate. Every move, every sound brought him back to Treacle Mine Road on that May 25th oh so long ago.
The silence lay heavy over the Watchmen. The somber mood dampened the spirits of the younger ones, the newly-minted constables, sinking past their enthusiasm and impressing upon them the importance of this day, though they had no idea. They hadn’t been there for the fateful battle, for the burials afterwards, for the fear and blood and death and stomach-turning bodies splayed in positions no living being could ever hope to attain.
Sam Vimes looked about the Watch house. There were few lilacs left now, as the older Watchmen retired or died. But the ones he saw were shining like beacons, catching his eye and dragging it against his will to follow them, loudly proclaiming for those who knew that We were there. We know. We saw. And if you don’t know what the lilac means, then you weren’t there and you don’t deserve to wear it.
“I was there,” Vimes said out loud, voice so soft it was almost inaudible. “I was there.”
He had been there. And he would remember.