MR 6

[KingSize]

a year and no argument. Not even Froc hisself would hand him his
papers, not after
Jackrum’d carried him on his back for fourteen miles through enemy
lines—’
The door swung open and Sergeant Jackrum walked in, tucking his hands
into his
belt.
‘Don’t bother to salute, lads,’ he said, as they turned guiltily.
‘Evening, Threeparts.
Nice to see nearly all of you again, you artful ol’ god-dodger.
Where’s Corporal
Strappi?’
‘Haven’t seen him all evening, sarge,’ said Maladict.
‘Didn’t he come in here with you?’
‘No, sarge. We thought he was with you.’
Not a muscle moved on Jackrum’s face. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Well, you
heard the
lieutenant. The boat leaves at midnight. We should be well down the
Kneck by
Wednesday’s dawn. Get a few hours’ sleep if you can. Tomorrow’s going
to be a long
day, if you’re lucky.’
And with that, he turned and went out again. Wind howled outside, and
was cut off
when the door shut. We’ll be well down the Kneck, Polly noted. Well
done,
Threeparts.
‘Missing a corporal?’ said Scallot. ‘Now there’s a thing. Usually it’s
a recruit that
goes ay-wole. Well, you heard the sergeant, boys. Time to wash up and
turn in.’
There was a washroom and latrine, in a rough and ready fashion. Polly
found a
moment when she and Shufti were in it alone. She’d racked her brains
about how best
to raise the subject, but as it turned out just a look was all it
took.
‘It was when I volunteered to do the supper, wasn’t it?’ Shufti
mumbled, staring
into the stone sink, which had moss growing in it.
‘That was a clue, yes,’ said Polly.
‘A lot of men cook, you know!’ said Shufti hotly.
‘Yes, but not soldiers, and not enthusiastically,’ said Polly. ‘They
don’t do
marinades.’
‘Have you told anybody?’ mumbled Shufti, red in the face.
‘No,’ said Polly, which was, after all, strictly true. ‘Look, you were
good, you had
me fooled right up until “sugar”.’
‘Yes, yes, I know,’ Shufti whispered. ‘I can do the belching and the
walking
stupidly and even the nose-picking, but I wasn’t brought up to swear
like you men!’
Us men, thought Polly. Oh, boy.
‘We’re the coarse and licentious soldiery. I’m afraid it’s shit or
bust,’ she said. ‘Er
. . . why are you doing this?’
Shufti stared into the dank stone sink as if strange green slime was
really
interesting, and mumbled something.
‘Sorry, what was that?’ said Polly.
‘Going to find my husband,’ said Shufti, only a little bit louder.
‘Oh, dear. How long had you been married?’ said Polly, without
thinking.
‘. . . not married yet. . .’ said Shufti, in a voice as tall as an
ant.
Polly glanced down at the plumpness of Shufti. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. She
tried to
sound reasonable. ‘Don’t you think that you should—’
‘Don’t you tell me to go home!’ said Shufti, rounding on her. ‘There’s
nothing for
me back home except disgrace! I’m not going home! I’m going to the war
and I’m
going to find him! No one’s going to tell me not to, Ozzer! No one!
This has
happened before, anyway! And it ended right! There’s a song about it
and
everything!’
‘Oh, that,’ said Polly. ‘Yes. I know.’ Folk singers should be shot.
‘What I was
going to say was that you might find this helps the disguise . . .’
She produced a soft
cylinder of woolly socks from her pack and wordlessly handed it over.
It was a
dangerous thing to do, she knew, but now she was feeling a kind of
responsibility to
those whose sudden strange fancy hadn’t been followed by a plan.
On the way back to her palliasse she caught sight of Wazzer hanging
his little
picture of the Duchess on a handy hook in the crumbling wall above his
mattress. He
looked around furtively, failed to spot Polly in the shadows of the
doorway, and
bobbed a very quick curtsy to the picture. A curtsy, not a bow.
Polly frowned. Four. She was barely surprised, now. And she had one
pair of clean
socks left. This was soon going to be a barefoot army.
Polly could tell the time by the fire. You got a feel for how long a
fire burned, and
the logs on this one were grey with ash over the glow beneath. It was
gone eleven, she
decided.
By the sound of it, no one was getting any sleep. She’d got up after
an hour or two
of lying on the crackling straw mattress, staring at darkness and
listening to things
move about underneath her; she’d have stayed on it for longer, but
something in the
straw seemed to want to push her leg out of the way. Besides, she
didn’t have any dry
blankets. There were blankets in the barracks, but Threeparts had
advised against
them on account of their carrying, as he put it, ‘the Itch’.
The corporal had left a candle alight. Polly had read Paul’s letter
again, and taken
another look at the piece of printed paper rescued from the muddy
road. The words
were fractured and she wasn’t sure about all of them, but she didn’t
like the sound of
any of them. ‘Invas’ had a particularly unpleasant ring to it.
And then there was the third piece of paper. She couldn’t help that.
It had been a
complete accident. She’d done Blouse’s laundry and of course you went
through the
pockets before you washed things, because anyone who’d ever tried to
unroll a soggy,
bleached sausage that’d once been a banknote didn’t want to do it
twice. And there
had been this folded piece of paper. Admittedly, she needn’t have
unfolded it and,
having unfolded it, needn’t have read it. But there are some things
that you just do.
It was a letter. Presumably Blouse had shoved it in a pocket and
forgotten about it
when he’d changed his shirt. She needn’t read it again but, by
candlelight, she did.
My Dearest Emmeline,
Fame and Fortune await! After only eight years as a 2nd Lieutenant I
have now been
promoted and am to have a command! Of course this will mean that there
will be no
officer left in the Adjutant-General’s Blanket’s, Bedding and Horse
Fodder
Department, but I have explained my new filing system to Cpl Drebb and
I believe he
is Sound.
You know I cannot go into matters of detail, but I believe this will
be a very exciting
prospect and I am anxious to be ‘at the Foe’. I am bold enough to hope
that the name
of Blouse will go down in military history. In the meantime, I am
brushing up my sword
drill and it is definitely all ‘coming back’ to me. Of course, the
promotion brings with it
no less than One Shilling extra ‘per Diem’, plus Three Pence fodder
allowance. To
this end I have purchased a ‘charger’ from Mr ‘Honest’ Jack Slacker, a
most
entertaining gentleman, although I fear that his description of my
steed’s ‘prowess’
may have been prone to some exaggeration. Nevertheless, I am ‘moving
up ‘at last
and if Fate smiles on me this will hurry forward the day when I can
And that was it, fortunately. After some thought, Polly went and
carefully damped
the letter, then dried it quickly over the remains of the fire and
slipped it into the
pocket of the washed shirt. Blouse might scold her for not removing it
before
washing, but she doubted it. -
A blanket-counter with a new filing system. An ensign for eight years,
in a war
where promotion could be rather fast. A man who put inverted commas
round any
word or phrase he thought of as even slightly ‘racy’. Brushing up on
his ‘sword drill’.
And so short-sighted he’d bought a horse from Jack Slacker, who went
around all the
horse fairs’ bargain bins and sold winded old screws that dropped a
leg before you’d
got home.
Our leader.
They were losing the war. Everyone knew that, but nobody would say it.
It was as
if they felt that if the words weren’t said out loud then it wasn’t
really happening.
They were losing the war and this squad, untrained and untried,
fighting in dead
men’s boots, could only help them lose it faster. Half of them were
girls! Because of
some bloody stupid song, Shufti was wandering off into a war to look
for the father of
her child, and that was a desperate errand for a girl even in
peacetime. And Lofty was
trailing after her boy, which would probably be romantic right up
until five minutes
into a battle. And she . . .
. . . well, yes. She’d heard the song, too. So what? Paul was her
brother. She’d
always kept an eye on him, even when she was small. Mother was always
busy,
everyone was always busy at The Duchess, so Polly had become a big
sister to a
brother fifteen months older than her. She’d taught him to blow his
nose, taught him
how to form letters, went and found him when crueller boys had got him
lost in the
woods. Running after Paul was a duty that had become a habit.
And then . . . well, it wasn’t the only reason. When her father died
The Duchess
would be lost to her side of the family if there was no male to
inherit. That was the
law, plain and simple. Nugganatic law said that men could inherit ‘the
Things of Men
‘ such as land, buildings, money and all domestic animals except cats.
Women could
inherit ‘the Things of Women’, which were mostly small items of
personal jewellery
and spinning wheels passed from mothers to daughters. They certainly
couldn’t
inherit a large, famous tavern.
So The Duchess would go to Paul if he was alive, or if he was dead it
was
allowable for it to go to Polly’s husband if she was married. And
since Polly saw no
prospect of that, she needed a brother. Paul could happily carry
barrels around for the
rest of his life; she would run The Duchess. But if she was left
alone, a woman with
no man, then at best all she’d get was maybe the chance to go on
living there while
the deeds went to cousin Vlopo, who was a drunkard.
Of course, all that wasn’t the reason. Certainly not. But it was a
reason, all the
same. The reason was, simply, Paul. She’d always found him and brought
him home.
She looked at the shako in her hands. There had been helmets, but
since they all
had arrow holes or gaping rips in them the squad had wordlessly gone
for the softer
hats. You’d die anyway, and at least you wouldn’t have a headache. The
shako’s
badge showed the regimental symbol of a flaming cheese. Maybe one day
she’d find
out why. Polly put it on, picked up her pack and the small bag of
laundry, and stepped
out into the night. The moon was gone, the clouds had come back. She
was drenched
by the time she’d crossed the square; the rain was coming
horizontally.
She shoved open the inn door and saw, by the light of one guttering
candle . . .
chaos. Clothing was strewn across the flagstones, cupboards were
hanging open.
Jackrum was coming down the stairs, cutlass in one hand, lantern in
the other.
‘Oh, it’s you, Perks,’ he said. ‘They’ve cleaned the place out and
buggered off.
Even Molly. I heard ‘em go. Pushing a cart, by the sound of it.
What’re you doing
here?’
‘Batman, sarge,’ said Polly, shaking water off her hat.
‘Oh, yeah. Right. Go and wake him up, then. He’s snoring like a
sawmill. I hope to
hell the boat’s still there.’
‘Why’d they bug— scarper, sarge?’ said Polly and thought: Sugar! If it
comes to it,
I don’t swear, either! But the sergeant didn’t appear to notice.
He gave her what is known as an old-fashioned look; this one had
dinosaurs in it.
‘Got wind of something, I don’t doubt,’ he said. ‘Of course, we’re
winning the war,
you know.’
‘Ah. Oh. And we’re not going to be invaded at all, I expect,’ said
Polly, with
equally exaggerated care.
‘Quite right. I detest those treacherous devils who’d have us believe
that a vast
army is about to sweep right across the country any day now,’ said
Jackrum.
‘Er . . . no sign of Corporal Strappi, sarge?’
‘No, but I haven’t turned over every stone yet— ssh!’
Polly froze, and strained to listen. There were hoofbeats, getting
louder as they
approached, and changing from thuds into the ringing sound of
horseshoes on
cobbles.
‘Cavalry patrol,’ Jackrum whispered, putting the lantern down on the
bar. ‘Six or
seven horses.’
‘Ours?’
‘I bleedin’ doubt it.’
The clattering slowed, and came to a stop outside.
‘Keep ‘em talking,’ said Jackrum, reaching down and sliding the door’s
bolt
across. He turned and headed towards the rear of the inn.
‘What? What about?’ whispered Polly. ‘Sarge?’
Jackrum had vanished. Polly heard murmuring outside the door, followed
by a
couple of sharp knocks.
She threw off her jacket. She wrenched the shako off her head and
tossed it behind
the bar. Now she wasn’t a soldier, at least. And, as the door was
shaken against the
bolt, she saw something white lying in the debris. It was a terrible
temptation . . .
The door burst open at the second blow, but the soldiers didn’t
immediately enter.
Lying under the bar, struggling to put the petticoat on over rolled-up
trousers, Polly
tried to make sense of the sounds. As far as she could tell from the
rustles and thuds,
anyone waiting inside the doorway with ambush in mind would have been
briefly and
terminally sorry. She tried to count the invaders; it sounded as
though there were at
least three. In the tense silence, the sound of a voice speaking in
normal tones came as
a shock.
‘We heard the bolt slide across. That means you’re in here somewhere.
Make it
easy on yourself. We don’t want to have to come and find you.’
I don’t want you to either, Polly thought. I’m not a soldier! Go away!
And then the
next thought was: What do you mean, you’re not a soldier? You took the
shilling and
kissed the picture, didn’t you? And suddenly an arm had reached under
the bar and
grabbed her. At least she didn’t have to act.
‘No! Please, sir! Don’t hurt me! I just got frightened! Please!’
But inside there was a certain . . . sock-ness that felt ashamed, and
wanted to kick
out.
‘Ye gods, what are you?’ said the cavalryman, pulling her upright and
looking at
her as if she was some kind of exhibit.
‘Polly, sir! Barmaid, sir! Only they cleared out and left me!’
‘Keep the noise down, girl!’
Polly nodded. The last thing she needed now was for Blouse to run down
the stairs
with his sabre and Fencing for Beginners.
‘Yes, sir,’ she squeaked.
‘Barmaid, eh? Three pints of what you’d probably call your finest ale,
then.’
That at least could happen on automatic. She’d seen the mugs under the
bar, and
the barrels were behind her. The beer was thin and sharp but probably
wouldn’t
dissolve a penny.
The cavalryman watched her closely as she filled the mugs. ‘What
happened to
your hair?’ he said.
Polly had been ready for this. ‘Oh, sir, they cut it off, sir! ‘cos I
smiled at a
Zlobenian trooper, sir!’
‘Here?’
‘In Drok, sir.’ It was a town much nearer the border. ‘And me mam said
it was
shaming to the family and I got sent here, sir!’
Her hands shook as she put the mugs on the bar, and she was hardly
exaggerating.
Hardly . . . but a bit, nevertheless. You’re acting like a girl, she
thought. Keep it up!
Now she could take stock of the invaders. They wore dark-blue
uniforms, and big
boots, and heavy cavalry helmets. One of them was standing by the
shuttered
windows. The other two were watching her. One had a sergeant’s stripes
and an
expression of deep suspicion. The one who’d grabbed her was a captain.
‘This is terrible beer, girl,’ he said, sniffing the mug.
‘Yes, sir, I know, sir,’ Polly gabbled. ‘They wouldn’t listen to me,
sir, and said you
have to put a damp sheet over the barrels in this thundery weather,
sir, and Molly
never cleans the spigot and—’
‘This town’s empty, you know that?’
‘They all scarpered, sir,’ said Polly earnestly. ‘Gonna be an
invasion, sir. Everyone
says. They’re frightened of you, sir.’
‘Except you, eh?’ said the sergeant.
‘What’s your name, girl who smiles at Zlobenian troopers?’ said the
captain,
smiling.
‘Polly, sir,’ said Polly. Her questing hand found what it was seeking
under the bar.
It was the barman’s friend. There always was one.
‘And are you frightened of me, Polly?’ said the captain. There was a
snigger from
the soldier by the window.
The captain had a well-trimmed moustache which had been waxed to
points, and
was over six feet tall, Polly reckoned. He had a pretty smile, too,
which was somehow
improved by the scar on his face. A circle of glass covered one eye.
Her hand gripped
the hidden cudgel.
‘No, sir,’ she said, looking back into one eye and one glass.
‘Er . . . what’s that
glass for, sir?’
‘It’s a monocle,’ said the captain. ‘It helps me see you, for which I
am eternally
grateful. I always say that if I had two I’d make a spectacle of
myself.’
That got a dutiful laugh from the sergeant. Polly looked blank.
‘And are you going to tell me where the recruits are?’ said the
captain.
She forced her expression not to change. ‘No.’
The captain smiled. He had good teeth, but there was, now, no warmth
in his eyes.
‘You are in no position to be ignorant,’ he said. ‘We won’t hurt them,
I assure
you.’
There was a scream in the distance.
‘Much,’ said the sergeant, with more satisfaction than was necessary.
There was
another yell. The captain nodded to the man by the door, who slipped
out. Polly
pulled the shako out from under the bar and put it on.
‘One of them gave you his cap, did he?’ said the sergeant, and his
teeth were
nowhere near as good as the officer’s. ‘Well, I like a girl who’ll
smile at a soldier—’
The cudgel hit him along the head. It was old blackthorn, and he went
down like a
tree. The captain backed away as Polly came out from behind the bar
with the club
readied again. But he hadn’t drawn his sword, and he was laughing.
‘Now, girl, if you want—’ He caught her arm as she swung, dragged her
towards
him in a tight grip, still laughing, and folded up almost silently as
her knee connected
with his sock drawer. Thank you, Gummy. As he sagged she stepped back
and
brought the cudgel down on his helmet, making it ring.
She was shaking. She felt sick. Her stomach was a small, red-hot lump.
What else
could she have done? Was she supposed to think We have met the enemy
and he is
nice? Anyway, he wasn’t. He was smug.
She tugged a sabre from a scabbard and crept out into the night. It
was still raining,
and waist-deep mist was drifting up from the river. Half a dozen or so
horses were
outside, but not tied up. A trooper was waiting with them. Faintly,
against the rustle of
the rain, she heard him making soothing noises to comfort one of them.
She wished
she hadn’t heard that. Well, she’d taken the shilling. Polly gripped
the cudgel.
She’d gone a step when the mist between her and the man fountained up
slowly as
something rose out of it. The horses shifted uneasily. The man turned,
a shadow
moved, the man fell. . .
‘Oil’ whispered Polly.
The shadow turned. ‘Ozzer? It’s me, Maladict,’ it said. ‘Sarge sent me
to see if you
needed help.’
‘Bloody Jackrum left me surrounded by armed men!’ Polly hissed.
‘And?’
‘Well, I . . . knocked two of them out,’ she said, feeling as she said
it that this
rather spoilt her case as a victim. ‘One went over the road, though.’
‘I think we got that one,’ said Maladict. ‘Well, I say “got” . . .
Tonker nearly gutted
him. There’s a girl with what I’d call unresolved issues.’ He turned
round. ‘Let’s see .
. . seven horses, seven men. Yep.’
‘Tonker?’ said Polly.
‘Oh, yes. Hadn’t you spotted her? She went mad when the man charged at
Lofty.
Now, let’s have a look at your gentlemen, shall we?’ said Maladict,
heading for the
inn door.
‘But Lofty and Tonker . . .’ Polly began, running to keep up. ‘I mean,
the way they
act, they . . . I thought she was his girl . . . but I thought
Tonker . . . I mean, I know
Lofty is a gi—’
Even in the dark, Maladict’s teeth gleamed as he smiled. ‘The world’s
certainly
unfolding itself for you, eh? Ozzer? Every day, something new. Cross-
dressing now, I
see.’
‘What?’
‘You are wearing a petticoat, Ozzer,’ said Maladict, stepping into the
bar. Polly
looked down guiltily and started to tug it off, and then thought: hang
on a moment. . .
The sergeant had managed to pull himself up against the bar, where he
was being
sick. The captain was groaning on the floor.
‘Good evening, gentlemen!’ said the vampire. ‘Please pay attention. I
am a
reformed vampire, which is to say, I am a bundle of suppressed
instincts held together
with spit and coffee. It would be wrong to say that violent, tearing
carnage does not
come easily to me. It’s not tearing your throats out that doesn’t come
easily to me.
Please don’t make it any harder.’
The sergeant pushed himself away from the bar top and took a muzzy
swing at
Maladict. Almost absent-mindedly, Maladict leaned away from it and
then returned a
roundhouse blow that knocked him over.
‘The captain looks bad,’ he said. ‘What did he try to do to poor
little you?’
‘Patronize me,’ said Polly, glaring at Maladict.
‘Ah,’ said the vampire.
Maladict knocked softly on the barracks door. It opened a fraction,
and then all the
way. Carborundum lowered his club. Wordlessly, Polly and Maladict
dragged the two
cavalrymen inside. Sergeant Jackrum was sitting on a stool by the
fire, drinking a mug
of beer.
‘Well done, lads,’ he said. Tut ‘em with the others.’ He waved the mug
vaguely
towards the far wall, where four of the soldiers were hunched sullenly
under the gaze
of Tonker. They had been manacled together. The last soldier was lying
on a table,
with Igor at work on him with a needle and thread.
‘How’s he coming along, private?’ said Jackrum.
‘He’ll be fine, tharge,’ said Igor. ‘It looked worthe than it wath,
really. Jutht ath
well, because until we get to the battlefield I won’t get any
thpareth.’
‘Got a couple of legs for ol’ Threeparts?’ said Jackrum.
‘Now then, sarge, none of that,’ said Scallot evenly. He was sitting
on the other
side of the fireplace. ‘You just leave me their horses and saddles.
Your lads could do
with their sabres, I’ve no doubt.’
‘They were looking for us, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘We’re just a bunch of
untrained
recruits and they were looking for us. I could’ve been killed, sarge!’
‘No, I know talent when I sees it,’ said Jackrum. ‘Well done, lad. Had
to piss off
myself, on account of a big man in full enemy uniform isn’t easy to
miss. Besides,
you lads needed to be woke up. That’s milit’ry thinking, that is.’
‘But if I hadn’t . . .’ Polly hesitated. ‘If I hadn’t tricked them,
they might’ve killed
the lieutenant!’
‘See? There’s always a positive side, any way you look at it,’ said
Scallot.
The sergeant stood up, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and
hitched up his
belt. He ambled over to the captain, reached down, and lifted him up
by his jacket.
‘Why were you looking for these boys, sir?’ he enquired.
The captain opened his eye and focused on the fat man.
‘I am an officer and a gentleman, sergeant,’ he muttered. ‘There are
rules.’
‘Not many gentlemen around here at this moment, sir,’ said the
sergeant.
‘Damn right,’ whispered Maladict. Polly, feeling drunk with relief and
released
tension, had to put her hand over her mouth to stop giggling.
‘Oh, yeah. The rules. Prisoners of war and that,’ Jackrum went on.
‘That means
you even have to eat the same things as us, you poor devils. So you’re
not going to
talk to me?’
‘I am . . . Captain Horentz of the First Heavy Dragoons. I’ll say
nothing more.’
And something about the way he said it elbowed Polly in the brain.
He’s lying.
Jackrum stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said: ‘Well,
now . . . it looks
like what we have here is an embugger-ance which, my lads of the
Cheesemongers, is
defined as an obstruction in the way of progress. I propose to deal
with it in this
wise!’ He let go of the man’s jacket and the captain fell back.
Sergeant Jackrum removed his hat. Then he removed his jacket, too,
revealing a
stained shirt and bright red braces. He was still almost spherical;
from his neck, folds
of skin lapped their way down to the tropical regions. The belt must
have been there
just to conform to regulations, Polly thought.
He reached up and undid a piece of string from around his neck. It was
looped
through a hole in a tarnished coin.
‘Corporal Scallot!’ he said.
‘Yes, sarge!’ said Scallot, saluting.
‘You will note I am divestering myself of my insignia and am handing
you my
official shilling, which means, since last time I signed up it was for
twelve years and
that was sixteen years ago, I am now fully and legally a damn
civilian!’
‘Yes, Mister Jackrum,’ said Scallot cheerfully. Among the prisoners,
heads jerked
up at the sound of the name.
‘And that being the case, and since you, captain, are invading our
country by night
under the cover of darkness, and I am a humble civilian, I think
there’s no rule to stop
me beating seven kinds of crap out of you until you tell me why you
came here and
when the rest of your mates are going to arrive. And that may take me
some time, sir,
because up until now I’ve only ever discovered five types of crap.’ He
rolled up his
sleeves, hauled up the captain again and drew back a fist—
‘We just had to take the recruits into custody,’ said a voice. ‘We
weren’t going to
hurt them! Now put him down, Jackrum, damn you! He’s still seeing
stars!’
It was the sergeant from the inn. Polly looked at the other prisoners.
Even with
Carborundum and Maladict watching them, and Tonker glowering at them,
there was
a definite sense that the first blow landed on the captain was going
to start a riot. And
Polly thought: they are very protective, aren’t they . . .
Jackrum must have picked it up, too. ‘Ah, now we’re talking,’ he said,
lowering
the captain gently but still holding his coat. ‘Your men speak up for
you well,
captain.’
‘That’s because we’re not slaves, you bloody beeteater,’ growled one
of the
troopers.
‘Slaves? All my lads joined up of their own free will, turniphead.’
‘Maybe they thought they did,’ said the sergeant. ‘You just lied to
‘em. Lied to ‘em
for years. They’re all gonna die because of your stupid lies! Lies and
your raddled,
rotting, lying old whore of a duchess!’
‘Private Goom, as you were! That is an order! As you were, I said!
Private
Maladict, take that sword off’f Private Goom! That is another order!
Sergeant, order
your men to ease back slowly! Slowly! Do it now! Upon my oath I am not
a violent
man, but any man, any man who disobeys me, bigod, that man is lookin’
at a broken
rib!’
Jackrum screamed all that in one long explosion of sound without
taking his eyes
off the captain.
Reaction, order and breathless stillness had taken just a few seconds.
Polly stared
at the sudden tableau as her muscles untensed.
The Zlobenian troopers were settling back. Carborundum’s raised club
began to
lower itself gently. Little Wazzer was held off the ground by
Maladict, who’d
wrenched a sword from her hand; possibly only a vampire could have
moved faster
than Wazzer as she’d charged the prisoners.
‘Custody,’ said Jackrum, in a quiet voice. ‘That’s a funny word. Look
at my little
lads, will you? Not a whisker between them yet, save for the troll,
and lichen don’t
count. Still wet behind the ears, they are. What’s dangerous about a
harmless bunch of
farm boys that’d concern a fine bunch of horse-wallopers like
yourselves?’
‘Can thomeone pleathe come and put their finger on thith knot?’ said
Igor, from his
makeshift operating table. ‘I’ve jutht about done.’
‘Harmless?’ said the sergeant, staring at the struggling Wazzer.
‘They’re a bunch
of bloody madmen!’
‘I want to speak to your officer, damn you,’ said the captain, who
looked a little
less unfocused now. ‘You do have an officer, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, we’ve got one somewhere, as I recall,’ said Jackrum. ‘Perks, go
and fetch
the rupert, will you? Best if you take that dress off first, too. You
never know, with
ruperts.’ He carefully lowered the captain on to a bench, and
straightened up.
‘Carborundum, Maladict, chop something off any prisoner who moves, and
any
man who tries to attack a prisoner!’ he said. ‘Now then . . . oh, yes.
Threeparts
Scallot, I wish to enlist in your wonderful army, with its many
opportunities for a
young man willing to apply himself.’
‘Any previous soldierin’?’ said Scallot, grinning.
‘Forty years fighting every bleeder within a hundred miles of
Borogravia,
corporal.’
‘Special skills?’
‘Stayin’ alive, corporal, come what may.’
‘Then allow me to present you with one shilling and immediate
acceleration to the
rank of sergeant,’ said Scallot, handing back the coat and the
shilling. ‘Want to