MR 16

[KingSize]

‘Yeah, well, I used to, too,’ snapped Tonker. ‘I used to beg her,
once. That stupid
face just stared and did nothing. She never stopped anything. All that
stuff, all that
stupid—’ The girl stopped, too many words blocking her brain. ‘Anyway,
why should
she talk to you?’
‘Because I listen,’ said Wazzer quietly.
‘And what does she say?’
‘Sometimes she just cries.’
‘She cries?’
‘Because there are so many things that people want, and she can’t give
them
anything.’ Wazzer gave them all one of her smiles that lit up the
room. ‘But
everything will be fine when I am in the right place,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s all right, then—’ Polly began, in that cloud of deep
embarrassment
that Wazzer called up within her.
‘Yeah, right,’ said Tonker. ‘But I’m not praying to anyone, okay? Ever
again. I
don’t like this, Wazz. You’re a decent kid, but I don’t like the way
you smile—’ She
stopped. ‘Oh, no . . .’
Polly stared at Wazzer. Her face was thin and all angles, and the
Duchess in the
painting had looked, well, like an overfed turbot, but now the smile,
the actual smile .
. .
‘I’m not putting up with that!’ Tonker snarled. ‘You stop that right
now! I mean it!
You’re giving me the creeps! Ozz, you stop her— him smiling like
that!’
‘Just calm down, all of you—’ Polly began.
‘Bleedin’ well shut up!’ said Jackrum. ‘A man can’t hear himself chew.
Look,
you’re all edgy. That happens. And Wazzer here’s just got a bit of
religion before the
fight. That happens, too. And what you do is, you save it all up for
the enemy.
Quieten down. That is what we in the milit’ry call an order, okay?’
‘Perks?’ It was Blouse.
‘You’d better hurry,’ said Maladict. ‘His corset probably wants
lacing . . .’
In fact Blouse was sitting on what remained of a chair.
‘Ah, Perks. A shave, please,’ he said.
‘Oh, I thought your hand was better, sir . . .’
‘Er . . . yes.’ Blouse looked awkward. ‘The problem, Perks, is . . . I
have never
actually shaved myself at all, to be honest. I had a man to do it for
me at school, and
then of course in the army I shared a batman with Blitherskite and,
er, those attempts I
made on my own behalf have been somewhat bloody. I never really
thought about it
until I got to Plotz and, er . . . suddenly it was embarrassing . . .’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Polly. It was a strange old world.
‘Later on perhaps you could give me a few tips,’ Blouse went on. ‘You
keep
yourself beautifully shaven, I can’t help noticing. General Froc would
be pleased.
He’s very anti-whiskers, they say.’
‘If you like, sir,’ said Polly. There was no getting out of it. She
made a show of
sharpening the razor. Perhaps she could manage it with only a few
small cuts . . .
‘Do you think I should have a reddened nose?’ said Blouse.
‘Probably, sir,’ said Polly. Sarge knows about me, I’m sure, she
thought. I know he
does. Why’s he keeping quiet?
‘Probably, Perks?’
‘What? Oh. No . . . why a red nose, sir?’ said Polly, applying the
lather with
vigour.
‘It would look more pff amusing, perhaps.’
‘Not sure that’s the purpose of the exercise, sir. Now, if you’d just,
er, lie back,
sir—’
‘There’s something you should know about young Perks, sir.’
Polly actually yelped. Walking as silently as only a sergeant can,
Jackrum had
stolen into the room.
‘pff Sergeant?’ said Blouse.
‘Perks doesn’t know how to shave a man, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘Give me
the razor,
Perks.’
‘Doesn’t know how to shave?’ said Blouse.
‘Nosir. Perks lied to us, right, Perks?’
‘All right, sarge, no need to drag it out,’ sighed Polly. ‘Lieutenant,
I’m—’
‘—under age,’ said Jackrum. ‘Right, Perks? Only fourteen, aren’t you?’
He looked
at Polly over the top of the lieutenant’s head, and winked.
‘Er . . . I told a lie to get enlisted, sir, yes,’ said Polly.
‘I don’t think a lad like that ought to be dragged into the keep,
however game he
is,’ said Jackrum. ‘And I don’t think he’s the only one. Right,
Perks?’
Oh, so that’s the game. Blackmail, Polly thought.
‘Yes, sarge,’ she said wearily.
‘Can’t have a massacre of little lads, sir, now can we?’ said Jackrum.
‘I see your pff point, sergeant,’ said the lieutenant, as Jackrum
gently drove the
blade down his cheek. ‘That is a tricky one.’
‘Best to call it a day, then?’ said Jackrum.
‘On the other hand, sergeant, I do know that you pff yourself joined
up as a child,’
said Blouse. The blade stopped moving.
‘Well, it was all different in those—’ Jackrum began.
‘You were five years old, apparently,’ the lieutenant went on. ‘You
see, when I
heard that I would be meeting you, a legend in the army, of course I
had a look at our
files so that I could, perhaps, make a few timely jokes in presenting
you with your
honourable discharge. You know, humorous little reminiscences about
times gone by?
Imagine how puzzled I was, therefore, to find that you appear to have
been drawing
actual wages for, well, it was a little hard to be certain, but
possibly as much as sixty
years.’
Polly had put a keen edge on the razor. It rested against the
lieutenant’s cheek.
Polly thought about the murder - oh, all right, the killing of an
escaping prisoner - in
the wood. It won’t be the first officer I’ve killed . . .
‘Probably one of them clerical errors, sir,’ said Jackrum coldly. In
the gloomy
room, with moss now colonizing the walls, the sergeant loomed large.
An owl, perched on the chimney, gave a screech. It echoed down into
the room.
‘In fact no, sergeant,’ said Blouse, apparently oblivious of the
razor. ‘Your
package, sergeant, had been tampered with. On numerous occasions.
Once, even by
General Froc. He deducted ten years from your age and signed the
change. And he
wasn’t the only one. Frankly, sergeant, I’m forced to only one
conclusion.’
‘And what’s that, sir?’ The razor halted again, still pressed against
Blouse’s neck.
The silence seemed to last for some time, sharp and drawn out.
‘That there was some other man called Jackrum,’ said Blouse slowly,
‘whose
records have . . . got mixed up with yours and . . . every attempt to
sort it out by
officers who were, er, not entirely at home with figures only made it
more confusing.’
The razor started to move again, with silky smoothness. ‘I think
you’ve put your
finger right on it, sir,’ said Jackrum.
‘I am going to write an explanatory note and add it to the packet,’
Blouse went on.
‘It seems to me the sensible thing to do would be to ask you here and
now how old
you are. How old are you, sergeant?’
‘Forty-three, sir,’ said Jackrum instantly. Polly looked up, expecting
the generic
thunderclap that ought to accompany such a universe-sized untruth.
‘Are you sure?’ said Blouse.
‘Forty-five, sir. The hardships of a soldier’s life show up onna face,
sir.’
‘Even so—’
‘Ah, I recall a couple of extra birthdays what had slipped my memory,
sir. I’m
forty-seven, sir.’ Still no rumble of celestial disapproval, Polly
noticed.
‘Er . . . yes. Very well. After all, you should know, eh, sergeant? I
shall amend it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Just like General Froc did. And Major Galosh. And Colonel Legin,
sergeant.’
‘Yessir. Clerical error has followed me around all the days of my
life, sir. I’ve been
a martyr to it.’ Jackrum stood back. ‘There we are, sir. Face as
smooth as a baby’s
bum. Smooth is how things should be, eh, sir? I’ve always liked things
smooth.’
They watched Lieutenant Blouse walk down through the trees to the
path. They
watched him join the erratic, straggling line of women on their way to
the door. They
listened for screams, and heard none.
‘D-does any woman sway that much?’ said Wazzer, peering through the
bushes.
‘Not legally, I think,’ said Polly, scanning the keep with the
lieutenant’s telescope.
‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for some sort of signal that he’s
okay.’
Somewhere overhead, a buzzard screamed.
‘No, they’ll have got him the moment he walked through the door,’ said
Maladict.
‘Bet on it.’
They left Jade on watch. With her paint scraped off, a troll could
settle into rocky
scenery so well that no one was likely to notice her before they
walked into her, and
by the time they’d walked into her it was too late.
They made their way back through the woods, and had almost reached the
ruined
farmhouse when it happened.
‘You are holding up well, Mal,’ said Polly. ‘Maybe those acorns did
the trick? You
haven’t mentioned coffee at all—’
Maladict stopped, and turned slowly. To Polly’s horror, his face was
suddenly
shiny with sweat. ‘You had to bring it up, didn’t you?’ he said
hoarsely. ‘Oh, please,
no! I was holding on so tight! I was doing so well!’ He fell forward,
but managed to
get on to his hands and knees. Then he raised his head, and his eyes
were glowing red.
‘Fetch . . . Igorina,’ he muttered, gasping. ‘I know she’s ready for
this . . .’
. . . whopwhopwhop . . .
Wazzer was praying furiously. Maladict tried to stand up again, fell
back on to his
knees, and raised his arms imploringly to the sky.
‘Get out of here while you can,’ he mumbled, as his teeth visibly
lengthened.
‘I’ll—’
There was a shadow, a sense of movement, and the vampire slumped
forward,
stunned by an eight-ounce sack of coffee beans that had dropped out of
a clear sky.
Polly arrived at the farmhouse carrying Maladict on her shoulder. She
made him as
comfortable as possible on some ancient straw, and the squad
consulted.
‘Do you think we ought to try to take the sack out of his mouth?’ said
Shufti
nervously.
‘I tried, but he fights,’ said Polly.
‘But he’s unconscious!’
‘He still won’t let go of it! He’s sucking it. I’d swear he was out
cold, but he just
sort of reached out and grabbed it and bit! It dropped out of a clear
sky!’
Tonker stared at Wazzer. ‘The Duchess does room service?’ she said.
‘No! She says she d-didn’t!’
‘You get freak rainth of fish,’ said Igorina, kneeling down by
Maladict. ‘I suppose
it’s possible that a whirlwind tore through a coffee plantation, and
then possibly a
lightning discharge in the upper ether—’
‘At what point did it blow through a factory making small coffee
sacks?’ said
Tonker. ‘Ones with a jolly turbaned man printed on them apparently
saying
“Klatchian Rare Roasted! When a Pickaxe is Not Enough!”‘
‘Well, if you’re going to put it like that, it does theem a little far-
fetched . . .’
Igorina stood up, adding, ‘I think he’ll be fine when he wakes up.
Possibly a little
talkative, though.’
‘Okay, lads, get some rest,’ said Jackrum, coming in. ‘Let’s give the
rupert a
couple of hours to muck things up, and then we can nip around the
valley and slip
down and join the rest of the army. Good grub and proper blankets to
sleep on, hey?
That’s the ticket!’
‘We don’t know he’s going to mess up, sarge,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, yeah, right, maybe he’ll have married the commander of the
garrison by now,
eh? Stranger things have happened, although I can’t remember when.
Perks and
Manickle, you’re on watch. The rest of you, get some shut-eye.’
A Zlobenian patrol went past in the distance. Polly watched it out of
sight. It was
turning into a fine day, warm with a bit of wind. Good drying weather.
A good day to
be a washerwoman. And maybe Blouse would succeed. Maybe all the guards
were
blind.
‘Pol?’ Shufti whispered.
‘Yes, Shuf . . . Look, what was your name back in the world?’
‘Betty. It’s Betty. Er . . . most of the Ins-and-Outs are in the keep,
right?’
‘Apparently.’
‘So that’s where I’m most likely to find my fiance, yes?’
We’ve talked about that, Polly thought. ‘Could be.’
‘Might be quite hard if there’s a lot of men . . .’ said Betty, a
woman with
something on her mind.
‘Well, if we get as far as the prisoners and ask around they’ll be
bound to know his
name. What is it?’
‘Johnny,’ whispered Betty.
‘Just Johnny?’ said Polly.
‘Er . . . yes . . .’
Ah, Polly thought. I think I know how this goes . . .
‘He’s got fair hair and blue eyes, and I think he had one gold
earring, and . . . and a
funny-shaped . . . what d’you call it? Oh, yes . . . sort of carbuncle
on his, his . . .
bottom.’
‘Right. Right.’
‘Um . . . now I come to tell someone, it doesn’t sound very helpful, I
suppose.’
Not unless we’re in a position to have a very unusual identity parade,
Polly
thought, and I can’t imagine what position that would be.
‘Not as such,’ she said.
‘He said everyone in the regiment knows him,’ Betty went on.
‘Right? Oh, good,’ said Polly. ‘All we need to do is ask.’
‘And, er, we were going to break a sixpence in half, you know, like
they do, so that
if he had to be away for years we’d be sure we’d got the right person
‘cos the two
halves would match . . .’
‘Oh, that would be a bit of a help, I expect.’
‘Well, yes, except, well, I gave him the sixpence, and he said he’d
get the
blacksmith to break it in his vice, and he went off and, er, I think
he got called away .
. .’ Betty’s voice! trailed off.
Well, that was about what I expected, Polly thought.
‘I expect you think I’m a silly girl,’ mumbled Betty after a while.
‘A foolish woman, perhaps,’ said Polly, turning to watch the landscape
intently.
‘It was, you know a whirlwind romance . . .’
‘Sounds more like a hurricane to me,’ said Polly, and Betty grinned.
‘Yes, it was a bit like that,’ she said.
Polly matched smile for smile. ‘Betty, it’s daft to talk about silly
and foolish at a
time like this,’ she said. ‘Where are we going to look for wisdom? To
a god who hates
jigsaws and the colour blue? A fossil government led by a picture? An
army that
thinks stubbornness is the same as courage? Compared to all that, all
you’ve got
wrong is timing!’
‘I don’t want to end up in the school, though,’ said Betty. ‘They took
away a girl
from our village and she was kicking and screaming—’
‘Then fight them!’ said Polly. ‘You’ve got a sword now, haven’t you?
Fight back!’
She saw the look of horror on Betty’s face, and remembered that this
wasn’t Tonker
she was talking to. ‘Look, if we get out of this alive we’ll talk to
the colonel. He
might be able to help.’ After all, perhaps your boy really was called
Johnny, she
thought, perhaps he really was called away suddenly. Hope is a
wonderful thing. She
went on: ‘If we get out of this there’s going to be no school and no
beatings. Not for
you or any of us. Not if we’ve got brains. Not if we’re smart.’
Betty was almost in tears, but she managed another smile. ‘And
Wazzer’s talking
to the Duchess, too. She’ll fix things!’
Polly stared out at the bright, unchanging landscape, empty except for
a buzzard
making wide circles in the forbidden blue. I’m not sure about that,’
she said. ‘But
someone up there likes us.’ .
Twilight was brief at this time of year. There had been no sign from
Blouse.
‘I watched until I couldn’t see,’ said Jade, as they sat and watched
Shufti make
stew. ‘Some of der women dat came out was ones I saw goin’ in dis
mornin’, too.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Jackrum.
‘We might be fick, sarge,’ said Jade, looking hurt, ‘but trolls have
great . . . er . . .
vis-you-all ack-you-it-tee. More women was going in dis evenin’, too.’
‘Night shift,’ said Tonker.
‘Oh well, he tried,’ said Jackrum. ‘With any luck he’s in a nice warm
cell and
they’ve found him a pair of long pants. Get your kit together, lads.
We’ll creep around
and into our lines and you’ll be snug in bed by midnight.’
Polly remembered what she’d said, hours ago, about fighting. You had
to start
somewhere. ‘I want to try the keep again,’ she said.
‘You do, Perks, do you?’ said Jackrum, with mock interest.
‘My brother’s in there.’
‘Nice safe place for him, then.’
‘He might be injured. I vote for the keep.’
‘Vote?’ said Jackrum. ‘My word, that’s a new one. Voting in the army?
Who wants
to get killed, lads, let’s have a show of hands? Knock it off, Perks.’
‘I’m going to try it, sarge!’
‘You are not!’
‘Try and stop me!’ The words came out before she could stop them. And
that’s it,
she thought, the shout heard round the world. No going back after
this. I’ve run off
the edge of the cliff and it’s all downhill from here.
Jackrum’s expression stayed blank for a second or two, and then he
said, ‘Anyone
else voting for the keep?’
Polly looked at Shufti, who blushed.
But: ‘We are,’ said Tonker. Beside her, Lofty struck a match, and held
it so that it
flared. That was pretty much a speech from Lofty.
‘Why, pray?’ said Jackrum.
‘We don’t want to sit around in a swamp,’ said Tonker. ‘And we don’t
like being
ordered around.’
‘Should have thought of that before you joined an army, lad!’
‘We aren’t lads, sarge.’
‘You are if I says you are!’
Well, it’s not as though I wasn’t expecting it, Polly thought. I’ve
played this out
enough times in my head. Here goes . • • ‘All right, sarge,’ she said.
‘It’s time to have
it out, here and now.’
‘Ooo, er,’ said Jackrum theatrically, fishing his screwed-up paper of
tobacco out of
his pocket.
‘What?’
Jackrum sat down on the remains of a wall. ‘Just injecting a little
sauciness into the
conversation,’ he said. ‘Carry on, Perks. Have your say. I thought
it’d come to this.’
‘You know I’m a woman, sarge,’ said Polly.
‘Yup. I wouldn’t trust you to shave cheese.’
The squad stared. Jackrum opened his big knife and examined the
chewing tobacco
as though it was the most interesting thing present.
‘So . . . er . . . what are you going to do about it?’ said Polly,
feeling derailed.
‘Dunno. Can’t do anything, can I? You were born like it.’
‘You didn’t tell Blouse!’ said Polly.
‘Nope.’
Polly wanted to knock the wretched tobacco out of the sergeant’s hand.
Now that
she had got over the surprise, there was something offensive about
this lack of
reaction. It was like someone opening a door just before your
battering ram hit it;
suddenly you were running through the building and not certain how to
stop.
‘Well, we’re all women, sarge,’ said Tonker. ‘How about that?’
Jackrum sawed at the tobacco.
‘So?’ he said, still paying attention to the job in hand.
‘What?’ said Polly.
‘Think no one else ever tried it? Think you’re the only ones? Think
your ol’ sarge
is deaf, blind and stupid? You could fool one another and anyone can
fool a rupert,
but you can’t fool Jackrum. Weren’t sure about Maladict and still
ain’t, because with
a vampire, who knows? And not sure about you, Carborundum, because
with a troll,
who cares? No offence.’
‘None taken,’ rumbled Jade. She caught Polly’s eye and shrugged.
‘Not so good at reading the signs, not knowing many trolls,’ said the
sergeant. ‘I
had you down pat in the first minute, Ozz. Something in the eyes, I
reckon. Like . . .
you were watching to see how good you were.’
Oh hell, Polly thought. ‘Er . . . do I have a pair of socks belonging
to you?’
‘Yep. Well washed, I might add.’
‘You’ll have them back right now!’ said Polly, grabbing for her belt.
‘In your own time, Perks, in your own time, no rush,’ said Jackrum,
raising a hand.
‘Well washed, please.’
‘Why, sarge?’ said Tonker. ‘Why didn’t you give us away? You could’ve
given us
away any time!’
Jackrum slewed his wad from cheek to cheek and sat chewing for a
while, staring
at nothing.
‘No, you ain’t the first,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen a few. Mostly by
themselves, always
frightened . . . and mostly they didn’t last long. But one or two of
them were bonny
soldiers, very bonny soldiers indeed. So I looked at you lot and I
thought to myself,
well now, I thought, I wonder how they’ll do when they find out
they’re not alone?
You know about lions?’ They nodded. ‘Well, the lion is a big ol’
coward, mostly. If
you want trouble, you want to tangle with the lioness. They’re
killers, and they hunt
together. It’s the same everywhere. If you want big grief, look to the
ladies. Even with
insects, right? There’s a kind of beetle where she bites his head off
right while he’s
exercisin’ his conjugals, and that’s what I call serious grief. On the
other hand, from
what I heard he carries on regardless, so maybe it’s not the same for
beetles.’
He looked around at their blank expressions. ‘No?’ he said. ‘Well,
maybe I
thought, a whole bunch of girls all at once, that’s . . . strange.
Maybe there’s a reason.’
Polly saw him glance briefly at Wazzer. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t goin’ to
shame you all in
front of a little toad like Strappi, and then there was all that
business in Plotz, and
then, well, we was gallopin’, as it were, caught up in things with no
time to get off.
You did well, lads. Very well. Shaped up like good ‘uns.’
‘I’m going into the keep,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, don’t worry about the rupert,’ said Jackrum. ‘Probably he’s
enjoying a nice
bowl of scubbo right now. He went to a school for young gentlemen, so
prison will be
just like old times.’
‘We’re still going, sarge. Sorry,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, don’t say sorry, Perks, you were doing well up ‘til then,’ said
Jackrum
bitterly.
Shufti stood up. ‘I’m going too,’ she said. ‘I think my . . . fiance
is in there.’
‘I have to go,’ said Wazzer. ‘The Duchess guides my steps.’
‘I’ll go, then,’ said Igorina. ‘I’m probably going to be needed.’
‘I shouldn’t fink I could get by as a washerwoman,’ rumbled Jade.
‘I’ll stay here
and watch over Mal. Hah, if he’s still after blood when he wakes up
he’s gonna have
blunt teeth!’
They looked at one another in silence, embarrassed but defiant. Then
there was the
sound of someone clapping, slowly.
‘Oh, very nice,’ said Jackrum. ‘A band of brothers, eh? Sorry . . .
sisters. Oh dear,
oh dear. Look, Blouse was a fool. It was prob’ly all them books. He
read all that stuff
about it being a noble thing to die for your country, I expect. I was
never that keen on
readin’, but I know the job is making some other poor devil die for
his.’
He slewed his black tobacco from side to side. ‘I wanted you to be
safe, lads.
Down in the press of men, I reckoned I could get you through this, no
matter how
many friends the Prince has sent after you. I look at you lads, and I
think: you poor
boys, you don’t know nothin’ about war. What you goin’ to do? Tonker,
you are a
crack shot, but after one shot who’s backing you up while you reload?
Perks, you
know a trick or two, but the blokes in the castle will maybe know a
trick or five.
You’re a good cook, Shufti; too bad it’s going to be too hot in there.
Will the Duchess
turn aside arrows, Wazzer?’
‘Yes. She will’
‘I hope you are right, my lad,’ said Jackrum, giving the girl a long
slow look.
‘Pers’nally, I’ve found religion in battle is as much use as a
chocolate helmet. You’ll
need more than a prayer if Prince Heinrich catches you, I might add.’
‘We’re going to try it, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘There’s nothing for us in
the army.’
‘Will you come with us, sarge?’ said Shufti.
‘No, lad. Me as a washerwoman? I doubt it. Don’t seem to have a skirt
anywhere
about me, for a start. Er . . . just one thing, lads. How are you
going to get in?’
‘In the morning. When we see the women going in again,’ said Polly.
‘Got it all planned, general? And you’ll be dressed as women?’
‘Er . . . we are women, sarge,’ said Polly.
‘Yes, lad. Technical detail. But you kitted out the rupert with all
your little knickknacks,
didn’t you? What’re you going to do, tell the guards you opened the
wrong
cupboard in the dark?’
Another embarrassed silence descended. Jackrum sighed. ‘This ain’t
proper war,’
he said. ‘Still, I said I’d look after you. You are my little lads, I
said.’ His eyes
gleamed. ‘And you still are, even if the world’s turned upside down.
I’ll just have to
hope, Miss Perks, that you picked up a few tricks from ol’ sarge,
although I reckon
you can think of a few of your own. And now I’d better get you kitted
up, right?’
‘Perhaps we could sneak in and steal something from the villages where
the
servants come from?’ said Tonker.
‘From a bunch of poor women?’ said Polly, her heart sinking. ‘Anyway,
there’d be
soldiers everywhere.’
‘Well, how do we get women’s clothes on a battlefield?’ said Lofty.
Jackrum laughed, stood up, stuck his thumbs in his belt and grinned.
‘I told you,
lads, you don’t know nuffin’ about war!’ he said.
. . and one of the things they hadn’t known was that it has edges.
Polly wasn’t certain what she’d expected. Men and horses, obviously.
In her
mind’s eye they were engaged in mortal combat, but you couldn’t go on
doing that all
day. So there would be tents. And that was about as far as the mind’s
eye had seen. It
hadn’t seen that an army on campaign is a sort of large, portable
city. It has only one
employer, and it manufactures dead people, but like all cities it
attracts . . . citizens.
What was unnerving was the sound of babies crying, off in the rows of
tents. She
hadn’t expected that. Or the mud. Or the crowds. Everywhere there were
fires, and the
smell of cooking. This was a siege, after all. People had settled in.
Getting down on to the plain in the dark had been easy. There was only
Polly and
Shufti trailing after the sergeant, who’d said that more would be too
many and in any
case would show up. There were patrols, but their edge had been dulled
by sheer
repetitiveness. Besides, the allies weren’t expecting anyone to make
much effort to
get into the valley, at least in small groups. And men in the dark
make a noise, far
more noise than a woman. They’d located a Borogravian sentry in the
gloom by the
noise of him trying to suck a morsel of dinner out of his teeth. But
another one had
located them when they were a stone’s throw from the tents. He was
young, so he was
still keen.
‘Halt! Who goes there? Friend or foe!’ The light from a cooking-fire
glinted off a
crossbow.
‘See?’ whispered Jackrum. ‘This is where your uniform is your friend.
Aren’t you
glad you kept it?’