MR 10

[KingSize]

‘Yessir,’ muttered Jackrum darkly.
Polly eased her way forward, too. The grass here was shorter, rabbit-
nibbled, with
small bushes here and there. She concentrated on keeping the noise
down, and aimed
for the clicking. The smell of chemical smoke grew stronger. It hung
in the air around
her. And, as she moved forward, she saw light, little specks of it.
She raised her head.
There were three men a few feet away, silhouetted against the night.
One of them
was holding a large pipe, about five feet long, balanced on his
shoulder at one end and
on a tripod at the other. That end was aimed at the distant hill. On
the other end, a foot
or so behind the man’s head, was a big square box. Light was leaking
from joints in
this; from a little stovepipe chimney on the top of it, heavy smoke
poured out.
‘Perks, on the count of three,’ said Jackrum, on Polly’s right. ‘One—’
‘As you were, sergeant,’ said Blouse quietly, on her left.
Polly saw Jackrum’s big florid face turn with an expression of
astonishment. ‘Sir?’
‘Hold position,’ said Blouse. Above them, the clicking continued.
Milit’ry secrets, thought Polly. Spies! Enemies! And we’re just
watching! It was
like seeing blood drain from an artery.
‘Sir!’ hissed Jackrum, rage smoking off him.
‘Hold position, sergeant. That is an order,’ said Blouse calmly.
Jackrum subsided, but only into the deceptive calm of a volcano
waiting to
explode. The relentless chatter of the clacks went on. It seemed to go
on for ever.
Beside Polly, Sergeant Jackrum seethed and fretted like a dog on a
leash.
The clicking stopped. Polly heard a distant murmur of conversation.
‘Sergeant Jackrum,’ whispered Blouse, ‘you may “get them” with all
speed!’
Jackrum exploded out of the grass like a partridge. ‘All right, my
lads! Up boys
and at ‘em!’
Polly’s first thought, as she leapt up and ran, was that the distance
was suddenly a
lot wider than it had appeared.
All three men had turned at the sound of Jackrum’s cry. The one with
the clacks
tube was already dropping it and reaching for a sword, but Jackrum was
bearing down
on him like a landslide. The man made the mistake of standing his
ground. There was
a brief clash of swords and then a melee, and Sergeant Jackrum was a
sufficiently
deadly melee all by himself.
The second man flew past Polly but she was running for the third one.
He backed
away from her, still reaching up to his mouth, then turned to run and
found himself
face to face with Maladict.
‘Don’t let him swallow!’ Polly yelled.
Maladict’s arm shot up, and lifted the struggling man aloft by his
throat.
It would have been a perfect operation had not the rest of the squad
arrived, having
put all their effort into running and left none to spare for slowing
down. There were
collisions.
Maladict went down as his captive kicked him in the chest and the man
tried to
scramble away, cannoning into Tonker. Polly leapt over Igorina, was
almost tripped
by a fallen Wazzer and threw herself desperately towards the quarry,
now on his
knees. He had a dagger out and waved it wildly in front of her while
he grasped his
throat with his other hand and made choking noises. She knocked the
knife away, ran
behind him and slapped him on the back as hard as she could. He fell
forward. Before
she could grab him a hand lifted him bodily and Jackrum’s voice
roared: ‘Can’t have
the poor man chokin’ to death, Perks!’ His other hand punched the man
in the
stomach with a noise like meat hitting a slab. The man’s eyes crossed
and something
large and white flew out of his mouth and shot over Jackrum’s
shoulder.
Jackrum dropped him and turned on Blouse. ‘Sir, I protest, sir!’ he
said, quiyering
with anger. ‘We lay there and watched these devils sending who knows
what
messages, sir! Spies, sir! We could’ve got ‘em right there and then,
sir!’
‘And then, sergeant?’ said Blouse.
‘What?’
‘Don’t you think the people they were talking to would wonder what had
happened
if the messages had stopped in mid-flow?’ said the lieutenant.
‘Even so, sir—’
‘Whereas now we have their device, sergeant, and their masters don’t
know we
have it,’ said Blouse.
‘Yeah, well, but you said they was sending messages in code, sir, and
—’
‘Er, I think we have their cipher book as well, sarge,’ said Maladict,
stepping
forward with the white object in his hand. ‘That man tried to eat it,
sarge. Rice paper.
But he rushed his food, you might say.’
‘And you dislodged it, sergeant, and probably saved his life. Well
done!’ said
Blouse.
‘But one of ‘em got away, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘He’ll soon get to—’
‘Sergeant?’
Jade was rising over the grass. As she plodded nearer they saw she was
dragging a
man by one foot. When she was closer it was obvious that the man was
dead. Living
people have more head.
‘I heard the shoutin’ and he come runnin’ and I jumped up and he come
straight
into me, head first!’ Jade complained. ‘I didn’t even get a chance to
hit him!’
‘Well, private, at least we can definitely say he was stopped,’ said
Blouse.
Thur, thith man is dying,’ said Igorina, who was kneeling by the man
Sergeant
Jackrum had so positively saved from choking. ‘He hath been
poithened!’
‘Hath he? By whom?’ said Blouse. ‘Are you sure?’
‘The green foam coming out of hith mouth ith a definite clue, thur.’
‘What’s funny, Private Maladict?’ said Blous
The vampire chuckled. ‘Oh, sorry, sir. They say to spies “If you’re
caught, eat the
documents”, don’t they? A good way of making sure they don’t give away
any
secrets.’
‘But you’ve got the . . . soggy book in your hands, corporal!’
‘Vampires can’t be poisoned that easily, sir,’ said Maladict calmly.
‘It wath probably only fatal by mouth in any case, thur,’ said
Igorina. ‘Terrible
stuff. Thtuff. He’th dead, thur. Nothing I can do.’
‘Poor fellow. Well, we have the codes, anyway,’ said Blouse. ‘This is
a great
discovery, men.’
‘And a prisoner, sir, and a prisoner,’ said Jackrum.
The one surviving man, who had been operating the clacks, groaned and
tried to
move.
‘A bit bruised, I expect,’ Jackrum added, with some satisfaction.
‘When I land on
someone, sir, they stay landed on.’
‘Two of you, bring him with us,’ said Blouse. ‘Sergeant, there’s a few
hours to
dawn, and I want to be well away from here. I want the other two
buried somewhere
down in the woods, and—’
‘You just have to say “carry on, sergeant”, sir,’ said Jackrum, and it
was almost a
wail. ‘That’s how it works, sir! You tell me what you want, I give ‘em
the orders!’
‘Times are changing, sergeant,’ said Blouse.
Messages, flying across the sky. They were an Abomination unto Nuggan.
The logic sounded impeccable to Polly as she helped Wazzer to dig two
graves.
Prayers from the faithful ascended unto Nuggan, going upwards. A
variety of unseen
things, such as sanctity and grace and a list of this week’s
Abominations, descended
from Nuggan to the faithful, going downwards. What was forbidden was
messages
from one human to another going, as it were, from side to side. There
could be
collisions. If you believed in Nuggan, that is. If you believed in
prayer.
Wazzer’s real name was Alice, she confided as she dug, but it was hard
to apply
the name to a small stick-thin lad with a bad haircut and not much
skill with a shovel,
who had a habit of standing just slightly too close to you and stared
just slightly to the
left of your face when she talked to you. Wazzer believed in prayer.
She believed in
everything. That made her kind of . . . awkward to talk to, if you
didn’t. But Polly felt
she should make the effort.
‘How old are you, Wazz?’ she said, shovelling dirt.
‘N-n-nineteen, Polly,’ said Wazzer.
‘Why’d you join?’
‘The Duchess told me to,’ said Wazzer.
That was why people didn’t talk to Wazzer much.
‘Wazz, you do know that wearing men’s clothes is an Abomination, don’t
you?’
‘Thank you for reminding me, Polly,’ said Wazzer, without a trace of
irony. ‘But
the Duchess told me that nothing I do in pursuit of my quest will be
held
Abominable.’
‘A quest, eh,’ said Polly, trying to sound jovial. ‘And what kind of
quest is that?’
‘I am to take command of the army,’ said Wazzer.
Hairs rose on the back of Polly’s neck. ‘Yes?’ she said.
‘Yes, the Duchess stepped out of her picture when I was asleep and
told me to go
at once to Kneck,’ said Wazzer. ‘The Little Mother spoke to me, Ozz.
She
commanded me. She guides my steps. She led me out of vile slavery. How
can that be
an Abomination?’
She’s got a sword, thought Polly. And a shovel. This needs careful
handling.
‘That’s nice,’ she said.
‘And . . . and I must tell you that . . . I. . . never in my life have
I felt such love and
camaraderie,’ Wazzer went on earnestly. ‘The last few days have been
the happiest of
my life. You have all shown me such kindness, such gentleness. The
Little Mother
guides me. She guides us all, Ozz. You believe that, too. Don’t you?’
The moonlight
revealed the tracks of tears in the grime on Wazzer’s cheeks.
‘Um,’ said Polly, and sought wildly for a way to avoid lying.
She found it. ‘Er . . . you know I want to find my brother?’ she said.
‘Well, that does you credit, the Duchess knows,’ said Wazzer quickly.
‘And, well . . . I’m also doing it for The Duchess,’ said Polly,
feeling wretched. ‘I
think about The Duchess all the time, I must admit.’ Well, that was
true. It just wasn’t
honest.
‘I’m so very glad to hear that, Ozz, because I had thought you were a
backslider,’
said Wazzer. ‘But you said that with such conviction. Perhaps this
would be the time
for us to get down on our knees and—’
‘Wazz, you’re standing in another man’s grave,’ said Polly. ‘There’s a
time and
place, you know? Let’s get back to the others, eh?’
The happiest days of the girl’s life had been spent tramping through
forests,
digging graves and trying to dodge soldiers on both sides? The trouble
with Polly was
that she had a mind that asked questions even when she really, really
didn’t want to
know the answers.
‘So . . . the Duchess is still talking to you, is she?’ she said, as
they made their way
among the dark trees.
‘Oh, yes. When we were in Plotz, sleeping in the barracks,’ said
Wazzer. ‘She said
it was all working.’
Don’t, don’t ask another question, said part of Polly’s mind, but she
ignored it out
of sheer horrible curiosity. Wazzer was nice - well, sort of nice, in
a slightly scary
way - but talking to her was like picking at a scab; you knew what was
likely to be
under the crust, but you picked anyway.
‘So . . . what did you use to do back in the world?’ she said.
Wazzer gave her a haunting smile. ‘I used to be beaten.’
Tea was brewing in a small hollow near the track. Several of the squad
were
standing guard. No one liked the idea of men in dark clothes sneaking
around.
‘Mug of saloop?’ said Shufti, holding them up. A few days ago they’d
have called
it ‘sweet milky tea’, but even if they couldn’t walk the walk yet they
were determined
to talk the talk as soon as possible.
‘What’s happening?’ said Polly.
‘Dunno,’ said Shufti. ‘Sarge and the rupert went off over that way
with the
prisoner but no one tells us groans anything.’
‘It’s “grunts”, I think,’ said Wazzer, taking the tea.
‘I’ve done them a couple of mugs, anyway. See what you can find out,
eh?’
Polly gulped her tea down, grabbed the mugs and hurried away.
On the edge of the hollow Maladict was lounging against a tree. There
was this
about vampires: they could never look scruffy. Instead, they
were . . . what was the
word . . . déshabille. It meant untidy, but with bags and bags of
style. In this case
Maladict’s jacket was open and he’d stuck his packet of cigarettes in
the band of his
shako. He saluted her with his crossbow as she went past.
‘Ozz?’ he said.
‘Yes, corp?’
‘Any coffee in their packs?’
‘Sorry, corp. Only tea.’
‘Damn!’ Maladict thumped the tree behind him. ‘Hey, you went straight
for the
man who was swallowing the cipher. Straight for him. How come?’
‘Just luck,’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, right. Try again. I have very good night vision.’
‘Oh, all right. Well, the one on the left started to run and the one
in the middle was
dropping the clacks tube and reaching for his sword, but the one on
the right thought
that putting something into his mouth was more important even than
fighting or
running away. Satisfied?’
‘You worked out all that in a couple of seconds? That was smart.’
‘Yeah, right. Now please forget it, okay? I don’t want to be noticed.
I don’t
particularly want to be here. I just want to find my brother. Okay?’
‘Fine. I just thought that you’d like to know someone saw you. And
you’d better
get that tea to ‘em before they try to kill one another.’
At least I was someone watching the enemy, Polly thought furiously as
she walked
away. I wasn’t someone watching another soldier. Who does he think he
is? Or she
is?
She heard the raised voices as she pushed through a thicket.
‘You can’t torture an unarmed man!’ That was Blouse’s voice.
‘Well, I’m not waiting for him to arm himself, sir! He knows stuff!
And he’s a
spy!’
‘Don’t you dare kick him in the ribs again! That is an order,
sergeant!’
‘Asking nicely didn’t work, did it, sir? “Pretty please with sprinkles
on top” is not
a recognized method of interrogation! You shouldn’t be here, sir! You
should say
“Sergeant, find out what you can from the prisoner!” and then go
somewhere and wait
until I tell you what I got out of him, sir!’
‘You did it again!’
‘What? What?’
‘You kicked him again!’
‘No, I didn’t!’
‘Sergeant, I gave you an order!’
‘And?’
‘Tea’s up!’ said Polly cheerfully.
Both men turned. Their expression changed. If they had been birds,
their feathers
would have gently settled back.
‘Ah, Perks,’ said Blouse. ‘Well done.’
‘Yeah . . . good lad,’ said Sergeant Jackrum.
Polly’s presence seemed to lower the temperature. The two men drank
their tea and
eyed one another warily.
‘You’ll have noticed, sergeant, that the men were wearing the dark-
green uniform
of the First Battalion the Zlobenian Fifty-ninth Bowmen. A skirmishing
battalion,’
said Blouse, with cold politeness. ‘That is not the uniform of a spy,
sergeant.’
‘Yessir? But they’d let their uniforms get very dirty, then. No shine
on the buttons,
sir.’
‘Patrolling behind enemy lines is not spying, sergeant. You must have
done it in
your time.’
‘More times than you could count, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘And I knew full
well that if
I got caught I was due a good kicking in the nadgers. But skirmishers
is the worst, sir.
You think you’re safe in the lines, next moment it turns out that some
bastard sitting
in the bushes on a hill has been working out windage and yardage and
has dropped an
arrow right through your mate’s head.’ He picked up a strange-looking
longbow. ‘See
these things they’ve got? Burleigh and Stronginthearm Number Five
Recurved, made
in bloody Ankh-Morpork. A real killing weapon. I say we give him a
choice, sir. He
can tell us what he knows, and go out easy. Or keep mum, and go out
hard.’
‘No, sergeant. He is an enemy officer taken in battle and entitled to
fair treatment.’
‘No, sir. He’s a sergeant, and they don’t deserve no respect at all,
sir. I should
know. They’re cunning and artful, if they’re any good. I wouldn’t mind
if he was an
officer, sir. But sergeants are clever.’
There was a grunt from the bound prisoner.
‘Loosen his gag. Perks,’ said Blouse. Instinctively, even if the
instinct was only a
couple of days old, Polly glanced at Jackrum. The sergeant shrugged.
She pulled the
rag down.
‘I’ll talk,’ said the prisoner, spitting out cotton fluff. ‘But not to
that tub of lard! I’ll
talk to the officer. You keep that man away from me!’
‘You’re in no position to negotiate, soldier boy!’ snarled Jackrum.
‘Sergeant,’ said the lieutenant, ‘I’m sure you have things to see to.
Please do so.
Send a couple of men back here. He can’t do anything against four of
us.’
‘But—’
‘That was another order, sergeant,’ said Blouse. He turned to the
prisoner as
Jackrum stumped off. ‘What is your name, man?’
‘Sergeant Towering, lieutenant. And if you are a sensible man, you
will release me
and surrender.’
‘Surrender?’ said Blouse, as Igorina and Wazzer ran into the clearing,
armed and
bewildered.
‘Yep. I’ll put in a good word for you when the boys catch up with us.
You don’t
want to know how many men are looking for you. Could I have a drink,
please?’
‘What? Oh, yes. Of course,’ said Blouse, as if caught out in a display
of bad
manners. ‘Perks, fetch some tea for the sergeant. Why are people
looking for us,
pray?’
Towering gave him a cockeyed grin. ‘You don’t know?’
‘No,’ said Blouse coldly.
‘You really don’t know?’ Now Towering was laughing. He was far too
relaxed for
a bound man, and Blouse sounded far too much like a nice but worried
man trying to
appear firm and determined. To Polly, it was like watching a child
bluffing in poker
against a man called Doc.
‘I don’t wish to play games, man. Out with it!’ said Blouse.
‘Everyone knows about you, lieutenant. You’re the Monstrous Regiment,
you are!’
he said. ‘No offence meant, of course. They say you’ve got a troll and
a vampire and
an Igor and a werewolf. They say you . . .’ he began to chuckle ‘. . .
they say you
overpowered Prince Heinrich and his guard and stole his boots and made
him hop
away in the altogether!’
In a thicket some way off, a nightingale sang. For quite a while,
uninterrupted.
Then Blouse said, ‘Hah, no, you are in fact wrong. The man was Captain
Horentz—’
‘Yeah, right, like he’d tell you who he was with you pointing swords
at him!’ said
Towering. ‘I heard from one of my mates that one of you kicked him in
the meat-andtwo-
veg, but I haven’t seen the picture yet.’
‘Someone took a picture of him getting kicked?’ squeaked Polly,
drenched in a
sudden horror.
‘Not of that, no. But there’s copies all over the place of him in
chains and I hear
it’s been sent by the clacks to Ankh-Morpork.’
‘Is . . . is he annoyed?’ Polly quavered, cursing Otto Chriek and his
picturemaking.
‘Well, now, let me see,’ said Towering sarcastically. ‘Annoyed? No, I
shouldn’t
think he’s annoyed. “Livid” is the word, I think. Or “raging”? Yeah, I
think “raging”
’s the word. There’s a lot of people looking for you lads now. Well
done!’
Even Blouse could see Polly’s distress. ‘Er . . . Perks,’ he said, ‘it
was you, wasn’t
it, who—’
Over and over in Polly’s head the words
ogodIkickedthePrinceinthefruitandveg
were going round and round like a hamster in a runaway treadmill
until, suddenly, it
ran up against something solid.
‘Yessir,’ she snapped. ‘He was forcing himself upon a young woman,
sir. If you
recall?’
Blouse’s frown faded, and became a grin of childlike duplicity. ‘Ah,
yes, indeed.
He was “pressing his suit” in no small way, was he not?’
‘He didn’t have ironing in mind, sir!’ said Polly fervently.
Towering glanced at Wazzer, grimly clutching a crossbow that Polly
knew for a
fact she was scared of, and Igorina, who’d much rather be holding a
surgeon’s knife
than the sabre in her hand and looked worried sick. Polly saw his
brief smile.
‘And there you have it, Sergeant Towering,’ said the lieutenant,
turning to the
prisoner. ‘Of course, we all know there is some atrocious behaviour in
times of war,
but it is not the sort of thing we would expect of a royal prince.* If
we are to be
pursued because a gallant young soldier prevented matters from
becoming even more
disgusting, then so be it.’
*Lieutenant Blouse read only the more technical history books.
‘Now I am impressed,’ said Towering. ‘A real knight errant, eh? He’s a
credit to
you, lieutenant. Any chance of that tea?’
Blouse’s skinny chest visibly swelled at the compliment. ‘Yes, Perks,
the tea, if
you would be so good.’
Leaving the three of you with this man who’s positively radiating an
intention to
escape, Polly thought. ‘Could perhaps Private Goom go and fetch—’ she
began.
‘A word in private, Perks?’ snapped Blouse. He drew her closer, but
Polly kept her
eye on Sergeant Towering. He might be bound hand and foot, but she
wouldn’t have
trusted a man who grinned like that if he’d been nailed to the
ceiling.
‘Perks, you are making a great contribution but I really will not have
my orders
continually questioned,’ said Blouse. ‘You are my batman, after all. I
think I run a
“happy ship” here, but I will be obeyed. Please?’
It was like being savaged by a goldfish, but she had to admit he had a
point. ‘Er . . .
sorry, sir,’ she said, backing away as long as possible so as not to
miss the end of the
tragedy. Then she turned and ran.
Jackrum was sitting by the fire, with the prisoner’s bow across his
huge knees,
slicing some sort of black sausage with a big clasp-knife. He was
chewing.
‘Where’s the rest of us, sir?’ said Polly, scrabbling for a mug.
‘I sent ‘em to scout a wide perimeter, Perks. Can’t be too careful if
matey-boy’s
got pals out there.’
. . . which was perfectly sensible. It just happened to mean that half
the squad had
been sent away . . .
‘Sarge, you know that captain back at the barracks? That was—’
‘I’ve got good hearing, Perks. Kicked him in the Royal Prerogative,
eh? Hah!
Makes it all more interestin’, eh?’
‘It’s going to go wrong, sarge, I just know it,’ said Polly, dragging
the kettle off the
hob and spilling half the water as she topped up the teapot.
‘D’you chew at all, Perks?’ said Jackrum.
‘What, sarge?’ said Polly distractedly.
The sergeant held out a small piece of sticky, black . . . stuff.
‘Tobacco. Chewing
tobacco,’ said Jackrum. ‘I favour Blackheart over Jolly Sailor, ‘cos
it’s rum-dipped,
but others say—’
‘Sarge, that man’s going to escape, sarge! I know he is! The
lieutenant isn’t in
charge, he is. He’s all friendly and everything, but I can tell by his
eyes, sarge!’
‘I’m sure Lieutenant Blouse knows what he’s doing, Perks,’ said
Jackrum primly.
‘You’re not telling me a bound man can overcome four of you, are you?’
‘Oh, sugar!’ said Polly.
‘Just down there, in the old black tin,’ said Jackrum. Polly tipped
some into the
worst cup of tea ever made by a serving soldier and ran back to the
clearing.
Amazingly, the man was still in a sitting position, and still bound
hand and foot.
Her fellow Cheesemongers were watching him dejectedly. Polly relaxed,
but only a
little.
‘—nd there you have it, lieutenant,’ he was saying. ‘No disgrace in
calling it quits,
eh? He’ll hunt you down soon enough, ‘cos it’s personal now. But if
you were to
come along with me, I’d do my best to see it goes easy with you. You
don’t want to
get caught by the Heavy Dragoons right now. They ain’t got much of a
sense of
humour—’
‘Tea up,’ said Polly.
‘Oh, thank you, Perks,’ said Blouse. ‘I think we can at least cut
Sergeant
Towering’s hands free, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Polly, meaning ‘no, sir’. The man offered his bound
wrists, and
Polly reached out gingerly with her knife while holding the mug like a
weapon.
‘Artful lad you’ve got here, lieutenant,’ said Towering. ‘He reckons
I’m going to
grab his knife off of him. Good lad.’
Polly sliced the rope, brought her knife hand back quickly, and then
carefully
proffered the mug.
‘And he’s made the tea lukewarm so’s it won’t hurt when I splashes it
in his face,’
Towering went on. He gave Polly the steady, honest gaze of the born
bastard.
Polly held it, lie for lie.
‘Oh, yeah. The Ankh-Morpork people’ve got a little printing press on a
cart, over
on the other side of the river,’ said Towering, still watching Polly.
‘For morale, they
say. And they sent the picture back to the city, too, on the clacks.
Don’t ask me how.
Oh yeah, a good picture. “Plucky Rookies Trounce Zlobenia’s Finest”,
they wrote.
Funny thing, but it looks like the writer man didn’t spot it was the
Prince. But we all
did!’
His voice became even more friendly. ‘Now look, mates, as a foot
soldier like
yourselves I’m all for seeing the bloody donkey-boys made to look
fools, so you
come along with me and I’ll see to it that at least you don’t sleep in
chains tomorrow.
That’s my best offer.’ He took a sip of tea, and added, ‘It’s a better
one than most of
the Tenth got, I’ll tell you. I heard your regiment got wiped out.’
Polly’s expression didn’t change, but she felt herself curl up into a
tiny ball behind
it. Look at the eyes, look at the eyes. Liar. Liar.
‘Wiped out?’ said Blouse.
Towering dropped his mug of tea. He smacked the crossbow out of
Wazzer’s hand
with his left hand, grabbed the sabre from Igorina with his right
hand, and brought the
curved blade down on the rope between his legs. It happened fast,
before any of them
could quite focus on the change in the situation, and then the
sergeant was on his feet,
slapping Blouse across the face and grabbing him in an arm lock.
‘And you were right, kiddo,’ he said to Polly, over Blouse’s shoulder.
‘Cryin’
shame you ain’t an officer, eh?’
The last of the fallen tea dribbled into the soil. Polly reached
slowly for her
crossbow.
‘Don’t. One step, one move from any of you, and I’ll cut him,’ said
the sergeant.
‘Won’t be the first officer I’ve killed, believe me—’
‘The difference between them and me is, I don’t care.’
Five heads turned. There was Jackrum, outlined against the distant
firelight. He
had the man’s own bow, drawn taut, and aimed directly at the sergeant
in complete
disregard of the fact that the lieutenant’s head was in the way.
Blouse closed his eyes.
‘You’d shoot your own officer?’ said Towering.
‘Yep. Won’t be the first officer I’ve killed, neither,’ said Jackrum.
‘You ain’t going
anywhere, friend, except down. Easy or hard . . . I don’t care.’ The
bow creaked.
‘You’re just bluffing, mister.’
‘Upon my oath, I am not a bluffing man. I don’t think we was ever
introduced, by
the way. Jackrum’s the name.’
The change in the man was a whole body event. He seemed to get
smaller, as if
every cell had said ‘oh dear’ very quietly to itself. He sagged, and
Blouse slumped a
little.
‘Can I—’