Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment (12 page)

 
 
  
‘I do believe them, indeed I do,’ said Blouse, shaking with nervous defiance. ‘I would
believe their testimony against yours, sir, if they told me the sky was green. And it would
appear that untrained as they are, they have bested some of Zlobenia’s finest soldiers by wit
and daring. I have every confidence that they have further surprises in store for us—’
‘Dropping your drawers would do it,’ whispered Maladict.
‘Shutup!’ hissed Polly, and then had to cram a fist into her mouth again.
‘I know you, Captain Horentz,’ said Blouse, and just for a moment the captain looked
worried. ‘I mean I know your sort. I’ve had to put up with them all my life. Big jovial bullies,
with their brains in their breeches. You dare to come riding into our country and think we’re
going to be frightened of you? You think you can appeal to me over the heads of my men?
You demand? On the soil of my country?’
‘Captain?’ murmured the cavalry sergeant, as Horentz stared open-mouthed at the
lieutenant, ‘they’ll be here soon . . .’
‘Ah,’ said Horentz uncertainly. Then he seemed, with some effort, to regain his
composure. ‘Reinforcements are coming,’ he snapped. ‘Free us now, you idiot, and I might
just put this down to native stupidity. Otherwise I shall see to it that things go very, very
badly for you and your . . . ha . . . men.’
‘Seven cavalrymen were considered not enough to deal with farm boys?’ said Blouse.
‘You’re sweating, captain. You are worried. And yet you have reinforcements coming?’
‘Permission to speak, sir!’ barked Jackrum, and went straight on to: ‘Cheesemongers! Get
bleedin’ armed again right now! Maladict, you give Private Goom his sword back an’ wish
him luck! Carborundum, you grab a handful of them twelve-foot pikes! The rest of—’
‘There’s these as well, sarge,’ said Maladict. ‘Lots of them. I got them off our friends’
saddles.’ He held up what looked to Polly like a couple of large pistol crossbows, steely and
sleek.
‘Horsebows?’ said Jackrum, like a child opening a wonderful Hogswatch present. ‘That’s
what you gets for leading an honest and sober life, my lads. Dreadful little engines they are.
Let’s have two each!’
‘I don’t want unnecessary violence, sergeant,’ said Blouse.
‘Right you are, sir!’ said the sergeant. ‘Carborundum! First man comes through that door
runnin’, I want him nailed to the wall!’ He caught the lieutenant’s eye, and added: ‘But not
too hard!’
. . . and someone did knock at the door.
Maladict levelled two bows at it. Carborundum lifted a couple of pikes in either hand.
Polly raised her cudgel, a weapon she at least knew how to use. The other boys, and girls,
raised whatever weapon Threeparts Scallot had been able to procure. There was silence. Polly
looked around.
‘Come in?’ she suggested.
‘Yeah, right, that should do it,’ said Jackrum, rolling his eyes.
The door was pushed open and a small, dapper man stepped through carefully. In build,
colouring and hairstyle he looked rather like Mala—
‘A vampire?’ said Polly softly.

 
 
  
‘Oh, damn,’ said Maladict.
The newcomer’s clothing, however, was unusual. It was an old-fashioned evening dress
coat with the sleeves removed and many, many pockets sewn all over it. In front of him,
slung around his neck, was a large black box. Against all common sense, he beamed at the
sight of a dozen weapons poised to deliver perforated death.
‘Vonderful!’ he said, lifting up the box and unfolding three legs to form a tripod for it. ‘But
. . . could zer troll move a little to his left please?’
‘Huh?’ said Carborundum. The squad looked at one another.
‘Yes, and if the sergeant vould be so kind as to move into the centre more, and raise those
swords a little bit higher?’ the vampire went on. ‘Great! And you, sir, if you could give me a
grrrrh . . . ?’
‘Grrrrh?’ said Blouse.
‘Very good! Really fierce now . . .’
There was a blinding flash and a brief cry of ‘Oh, sh—’, followed by the tinkle of breaking
glass.
Where the vampire had been standing was a little cone of dust. Blinking, Polly watched it
fountain up into a human shape which coalesced once more into the vampire.
‘Oh dear, I really thought ze new filter vould do it,’ he said. ‘Oh veil, ve live und learn.’
He gave them a bright smile and added, ‘Now - vhich vun of you is Captain Horentz, please?’
Half an hour had passed. Polly was still bewildered. The trouble was not that she didn’t
understand what was going on. The problem was that before she could understand that, she
had to understand a lot of other things. One of them was the concept of a ‘newspaper’.
Blouse was looking proud and worried by turns, but nervous all the time. Polly watched
him carefully, not least because he was talking to the man who had come in behind the
iconographer. He was wearing a big leather coat and jodhpurs, and spent most of the time
writing things down in a notebook, with occasional puzzled glances at the squad. Finally,
Maladict, who had good hearing, sauntered over to the recruits from his lounging spot by the
wall.
‘Okay,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘It’s all a bit complicated, but . . . do any of you know
about newspapers?’
‘Yeth, my thecond couthin Igor in Ankh-Morpork told me about them,’ said Igor. ‘They’re
like a kind of government announthement.’
‘Um . . . sort of. Except they’re not written by the government. They’re written by ordinary
people who write things down,’ said Maladict.
‘Like a diary?’ said Tonker.
‘Um . . . no . . .’
Maladict tried to explain. The squad tried to understand. It still made no sense. It sounded
to Polly like some kind of Punch and Judy show. Anyway, why would you trust anything
written down? She certainly didn’t trust ‘Mothers of Borogravia!’ and that was from the
government. And if you couldn’t trust the government, who could you trust?

 
 
  
Very nearly everyone, come to think of it . . .
‘Mr de Worde works for a newspaper in Ankh-Morpork,’ said Maladict. ‘He says we’re
losing. He says casualties are mounting and troops are deserting and all the civilians are
heading for the mountains.’
‘W-why should we believe him?’ Wazzer demanded.
‘Well, we’ve seen a lot of casualties and refugees and Corporal Strappi hasn’t been around
since he heard he was going to the front,’ said Maladict. ‘Sorry, but it’s true. We’ve all seen
it.’
‘Yeah, but he’s just some man from a foreign country. Why w-would the Duchess lie to
us? I mean, why would she send us out just to die?’ said Wazzer. ‘She w-watches over us!’
‘Everyone says we’re winning,’ said Tonker, doubtfully, after that moment of
embarrassment. Tears were running down Wazzer’s face.
‘No, they don’t,’ said Polly. ‘I don’t think we are, either.’
‘Does anyone think we are?’ said Maladict. Polly looked from face to face.
‘But saying so . . . it’s like treachery against the Duchess, isn’t it?’ said Wazzer. ‘It’s
spreading Alarm and Despondency, isn’t it?’
‘Maybe we ought to be alarmed,’ said Maladict. ‘Do you know how he came to be here?
He travels around writing down things about the war for his paper of news. He met these
cavalry just up the road. In our country! And they told him they’d just heard that the very last
recruits from Borogravia were here and they were nothing but, er, “a wet little bunch of
squeaking boys”. They said they’d capture us for our own good and he could get a picture of
us for his paper. He could show everybody how dreadful things were, they said, because we
were scraping the bottom of the barrel.’
‘Yeah, but we beat ‘em so that’s foxed him!’ said Tonker, grinning nastily. ‘Nothing for
him to write down now, eh?’
‘Um . . . not really. He says that this is even better!’
‘Better? Whose side is he on?’
‘Bit of a puzzler, really. He comes from Ankh-Morpork, but he’s not exactly on their side.
Er . . . Otto Chriek, who makes the pictures for him—’
‘The vampire? He crumbled to dust when the light flashed!’ said Polly. ‘Then he . . . came
back!’
‘Well, I was standing behind Carborundum at the time,’ said Maladict, ‘but I know the
technique. He probably had a thin glass vial of b . . . bl. . . blur . . . no, wait, I can say this . . .
blood.’ He sighed. ‘There! No problem. A thin vial of . . . what I said . . . which smashed on
the ground and pulled the dust back together again. It’s a great idea.’ Maladict gave them a
wan smile. ‘I think he really cares a lot about what he does, you know. Anyway, he told me
de Worde just tries to find out the truth. And then he writes it down and sells it to anyone
who wants it.’
‘And people let him do that?’ said Polly.
‘Apparently. Otto says he makes Commander Vimes livid with rage about once a week,
but nothing ever happens.’
‘Vimes? The Butcher?’ said Polly.

 
 
  
‘He’s a duke, Otto says. But not like ours. Otto says he’s never seen him butcher anybody.
Otto’s a Black Ribboner, like me. He wouldn’t lie to a fellow Ribboner. And he says that
picture he took is going on the clacks from the nearest tower tonight. It will be in the paper of
news tomorrow! And they print a copy here!’
‘How can you send a picture on the clacks?’ said Polly. ‘I know people who’ve seen them.
It’s just a lot of boxes on a tower that go clack-clack!’
‘Ah, Otto explained that to me, too,’ said Maladict. ‘It’s very ingenious.’
‘How does it work, then?’
‘Oh, I didn’t understand what he said. It was all about . . . numbers. But it certainly
sounded very clever. Anyway, de Worde just told the lieu— the rupert that news about a
bunch of boys beating up experienced soldiers would certainly make people sit up and take
notice!’
The squad looked at one another sheepishly.
‘It was a bit of a fluke, and anyway we had Carborundum,’ said Tonker.
‘And I used trickery,’ said Polly. ‘I mean, I couldn’t do it twice.’
‘So what?’ said Maladict. ‘We did it. The squad did it! Next time we’ll do it differently!’
‘Yeah!’ said Tonker. And there was a shared moment of exhilaration in which they were
capable of anything. It lasted all of . . . a moment.
‘But it won’t work,’ said Shufti. ‘We’ve just been lucky. You know it won’t work,
Maladict. You all know it won’t work, right?’
‘Well, I’m not saying we could, you know, take on a regiment all at once,’ said Maladict.
‘And the lieu— rupert might be a bit wet. But we could help make a difference. Old Jackrum
knows what he’s doing—’
‘Upon my oath I am not a violent man . . . whack!’ sniggered Tonker, and there were a few
. . . yes, giggles, they were giggles, Polly knew, from the squad.
‘No, you’re not,’ said Shufti flatly. ‘None of us are, right? Because we’re girls.’
There was a dead silence.
‘Well, not Carborundum and Ozzer, okay,’ Shufti went on, as if the silence was sucking
unwilling words out of her. ‘And I’m not sure about Maladict and Igor. But I know the rest of
us are, right? I’ve got eyes, I’ve got ears, I’ve got a brain. Right?’
In the silence there was the slow rumble that preceded a pronouncement from
Carborundum.
‘If it any help,’ she said, in a voice suddenly more sandy than gravelly, ‘my real name’s
Jade.’
Polly felt questing eyes boring into her. She was embarrassed, of course. But not for the
obvious reason. It was for the other one, the little lesson that life sometimes rams home with
a stick: you are not the only one watching the world. Other people are people; while you
watch them they watch you, and they think about you while you think about them. The world
isn’t just about you.
There was going to be no possibility of getting out of this. And, in a way, it was a relief.
‘Polly,’ she said, almost in a whisper.

 
 
  
She looked questioningly at Maladict, who smiled in a distinctly non-committal way. ‘Is
this the time?’ he said.
‘All right, you lot, what’reyou standing about for?’ bawled Jackrum, six inches from the
back of Maladict’s head. No one saw him arrive there; he moved with an NCO’s stealth,
which sometimes mystifies even Igors.
Maladict’s smile didn’t change. ‘Why, we’re awaiting your orders, sergeant,’ he said,
turning round.
‘D’you think you’re clever, Maladict?’
‘Um . . . yes, sarge. Quite clever,’ the vampire conceded.
There wasn’t a lot of humour in Jackrum’s smile. ‘Good. Glad to hear it. Don’t want
another stupid corporal. Yeah, I know you ain’t even a proper private yet, but glory be,
you’re a corporal now ‘cos I need one and you’re the snappiest dresser. Get some stripes
from Threeparts. The rest of you . . . this isn’t a bleedin’ mothers’ meeting, we’re leaving in
five minutes. Move!’
‘But the prisoners, sarge—’ Polly began, still trying to digest the revelation.
‘We’re goin’ to drag ‘em over to the inn an’ leave ‘em tied up in the nood, and shackled
together,’ said Jackrum. ‘Vicious little devil when he’s roused, our rupert, eh? And
Threeparts is having their boots and horses. They won’t be going too far for a while, not in
the nood.’
‘Won’t the writing man let them out?’ said Tonker.
‘Don’t care,’ said Jackrum. ‘He could probably cut the ropes, but I’m dropping the shackle
key in the privy, and that’ll take a bit of fishing out.’
‘Whose side is he on, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Dunno. I don’t trust ‘em. Ignore ‘em. Don’t talk to ‘em. Never talk to people who writes
things down. Milit’ry rule. Now, I know I just gave you lot an order ‘cos I heard the bleedin’
echo! Get on with it! We are leaving!’
‘Road to perdition, lad, promotion,’ said Scallot to Maladict, swinging up with two stripes
hanging from his hook. He grinned. ‘That’s three pence extra a day you’re due now, only you
won’t get it ‘cos they ain’t payin’ us, but to look on the bright side, you won’t get stoppages,
and they’re a devil for stoppages. The way I see it, march backwards and yer pockets’ll
overflow!’
The rain had stopped. Most of the squad were parading outside the barracks where there
was, now, a small covered wagon belonging to the writer of the paper of news. A large flag
hung from a pole attached to it, but Polly couldn’t make out the design by moonlight. Beside
the wagon, Maladict was deep in conversation with Otto.
The centre of attention, though, was the line of cavalry horses. One had been offered to
Blouse, but he’d waved it away with a look of alarm, muttering something about ‘being loyal
to his steed’, which to Polly’s eye looked like a self-propelled toast-rack with a bad attitude.
But he’d probably made the right decision, at that, because they were big beasts, broad,
battle-hardened and bright-eyed; sitting astride one of them would have strained the crotch in
Blouse’s trousers and an attempt at reining one of them in would have pulled his arms off at