‘I’m coming too, sergeant,’ Blouse insisted.
Jackrum hesitated. ‘Yessir,’ he said. ‘But with respect, sir, I know about skirmishing—’
‘Let’s go, sergeant,’ said Blouse, dropping flat and beginning to drag himself forward.
‘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 mêlée, and Sergeant Jackrum was a sufficiently deadly mêlée 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, quivering 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 Blouse.
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 . . . déshabillé. 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 kee
p 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!’