Coalface

Coalface
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Name	Coalface
Race	Troll
Age
Occupation	Privy cleaner and member of the Breccia
Physical appearance
Residence	Ankh-Morpork
Death
Parents
Relatives
Children
Marital Status
Appearances
Books	Men at Arms
Cameos	The Fifth Elephant

Coalface was a Troll residing in Ankh-Morpork working as a privy cleaner. He also happens to be a righthand troll for Chrysoprase in the Breccia, however, and is described by Fred Colon as a nasty piece of work, and as making Detritus look clean by comparison.

In Men at Arms, Captain Quirke arrests him for the murder of Hammerhock, a dwarf. To Quirke, this is all the evidence he needs- especially since someone claimed to see him on Rime Street just before the murder. In this case, though, there's no way he could have killed Hammerhock - he couldn't have gotten through the door. However, the Patrician could not care less- when a crime is commited, a criminal must be punished, but it doesn't really matter whether the criminal punished actually commited the crime he is being punished for. And since everyone was undoubtedly guilty of something, the net result is that justice is done. (And Coalface is guilty of many things, given his membership in the Breccia).

This view of crime and punishment is not shared by other members of the Watch, however, especially Carrot. Carrot leads a city militia (that by chance are comprised of the entire Night Watch) to the Day Watchhouse where Coalface is released (after Carrot lays out Quirke). Detritus then swears Coalface in as a temporary Watchman, because the dwarves in the crowd (who blame Coalface for killing Hammerhock) would quickly kill him. While some persuasion is required to get Coalface to join, he does eventually swear the ancient troll oath of "I will do what I told otherwise I get my goohuloog head kicked in."

He insists that he "never took nuffin" and "never did nuffin, neither" for the rest of his brief time in the Watch. Coalface and Bauxite then are ordered by Colon to apprehend an enraged Detritus, and as Coalface is the less circuitous thinker, he comments that they are now going to get their goohuloog heads kicked in anyway...

By the time of The Fifth Elephant, he has left the Watch and became a common criminal again. Done It Duncan, when called to Assist the Watch with Their Inquiries, mentions that he, not Coalface and his boys, raided the gold vaults a week ago. Nobby comments afterwards that now they know who did the haul at the gold vaults as a result.