Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment (14 page)

Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment

Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment

 
 
  
‘Sure,’ said Maladict. ‘Some things we’re good at smelling. But how did you know?’
‘They watch the burns like hawks,’ said Polly, staring at the hut. ‘He wouldn’t let it go out
of control like that if he was alive. Is he in the hut?’
‘They are in the hut,’ said Maladict flatly. He set off across the smoky ground.
Polly ran after him. ‘Man and woman?’ she said. ‘Their wives often live out with—’
‘Can’t tell, not if they’re old.’
The hut was only a temporary thing, made of woven hazel and roofed with tarpaulin; the
charcoal-burners moved around a lot, from coppice to coppice. It didn’t have windows, but it
did have a doorway, with a rag for a door. The rag had been pulled away; the doorway was
dark.
I’ve got to be a man about this, Polly thought.
There was a woman on the bed, and a man lying on the floor. There were other details,
which the eye saw but the brain did not focus on. There was a great deal of blood. The couple
had been old. They would not grow older.
Back outside, Polly took frantic mouthfuls of air. ‘Do you think those cavalrymen did it?’
she said at last, and then realized that Maladict was shaking. ‘Oh . . . the blood . . .’ she said.
‘I can deal with it! It’s okay! I just have to get my mind right, it’s okay!’ He leaned against
the hut, breathing heavily. ‘Okay, I’m fine,’ he said. ‘And I can’t smell horses. Why don’t
you use your eyes? Nice soft mud everywhere after the rain, but no hoof-prints. Plenty of
footprints, though. We did it.’
‘Don’t be silly, we were—’
The vampire had reached down and pulled something out of the fallen leaves. He rubbed
the mud off it with a thumb. In thin pressed brass, it was the Flaming Cheese badge of the
Ins-and-Outs.
‘But . . . I thought we were the good guys,’ said Polly weakly. ‘If we were guys, I mean.’
‘I think I need a coffee,’ said the vampire.
‘Deserters,’ said Sergeant Jackrum, ten minutes later. ‘It happens.’ He tossed the badge
into the fire.
‘But they were on our side!’ said Shufti.
‘So? Not everyone’s a nice gennelman like you, Private Manickle,’ said Jackrum. ‘Not
after a few years of gettin’ shot at and eatin’ rat scubbo. On the retreat from Khrusk I had no
water for three days and then fell on my face in a puddle of horse piss, a circumstance which
did nothing for my feelin’s of goodwill towards my fellow man or horse. Something the
matter, corporal?’
Maladict was on his knees, going through his pack with a distracted air. ‘My coffee’s gone,
sarge.’
‘Can’t have packed it properly, then,’ said Jackrum unsympathetically.
‘I did, sarge! I washed out the engine and packed it up with the bean bag after supper last
night. I know I did. I don’t take coffee lightly!’

 
 
  
‘If someone else did, they’re going to wish I’d never been born,’ growled Jackrum, looking
round at the rest of the squad. ‘Anyone else lost anything?’
‘Er . . . I wasn’t going to say anything, ‘cos I wasn’t sure,’ Shufti volunteered, ‘but my
stuff looked as if it had been pulled about when I opened my pack just now . . .’
‘Oh-ho!’ said Jackrum. ‘Well, well, well. I’ll say this once, lads. Pinching from yer mates
is a hanging offence, understood? Nothing breaks down morale faster’n some sneaky little
sod dipping into people’s packs. And if I find out someone’s been at it, I’ll swing on their
heels!’ He glared at the squad. ‘I ain’t gonna demand that you all empty out your packs as if
you’s criminals,’ he said, ‘but you’d better check that nothing’s missing. O’ course, one of
you might have packed something that wasn’t theirs by accident, okay. Packing in a rush,
poor light, easy to do. In which case, you sort it out amongst yourselves, understand? Now,
I’m off to have a shave. Lieutenant Blouse is having a throw-up behind the shelter after a-
viewin’ of the corpses, poor chap.’
Polly rummaged desperately in her pack. She’d thrown things in any old how last night,
but what she was frantically searching for was—
—not there. Despite the heat from the charcoal mounds, she shivered.
The ringlets had gone. Feverishly, she tried to remember the events of yesterday evening.
They’d just dumped their packs as soon as they were in the barracks, right? And Maladict
had made himself some coffee at suppertime. He’d washed and dried the little machine—
There was a thin little wail. Wazzer, the meagre contents of her pack spread around her,
held up the coffee engine. It had been stamped almost flat.
‘B-b-b—’ she began.
Polly’s mind worked faster, like a millwheel in a flood. Then everyone took their packs
into the back room with all the mattresses, didn’t they? So they’d still be there when the
squad fought the troopers—
‘Oh, Wazz,’ said Shufti. ‘Oh, dear . . .’
So who might have sneaked in through the back door? There was no one around except the
squad and the cavalrymen. Perhaps someone wanted to watch, and cause a little trouble on
the way—
‘Strappi!’ she said aloud. ‘It must have been him! The little weasel ran into the cavalry and
then snuck back to watch! He was dar— damn well going through our packs out the back!
Oh, come on,’ she added, as they stared at her, ‘can you see Wazzer stealing from anyone?
Anyway, when did she have the chance?’
‘Wouldn’t they have taken him prisoner?’ said Tonker, staring at the crushed machine in
Wazzer’s shaking hands.
‘If he’d whipped off his shako and jacket he’d just be another stupid civilian, wouldn’t he?
Or he could just say he was a deserter. He could make up some story,’ said Polly. ‘You know
how he was with Wazzer. He went through my pack, too. Stole . . . something of mine.’
‘What was it?’ said Shufti.
‘Just something, okay? He just wanted to . . . make trouble.’ She watched them thinking.
‘Sounds convincing,’ said Maladict, nodding abruptly. ‘Little weasel. Okay, Wazz, just
fish out the beans and I’ll do the best I can—’
‘T-there’s no b-b-b—’

 
 
  
Maladict put a hand over his eyes. ‘No beans?’ he said. ‘Please, has anyone got the beans?’
There was a general rummaging, and a general lack of a result.
‘No beans.’ moaned Maladict. ‘He threw away the beans . . .’
‘Come on, lads, we’ve got to get sentries posted,’ said Jackrum, approaching. ‘Sorted it all
out, have you?’
‘Yes, sarge. Ozz thinks—’ Shufti began.
‘It was all a bit of mis-packing, sarge!’ said Polly quickly, anxious to keep away from
anything connected with missing ringlets. ‘Nothing to worry about! All sorted, sarge. No
problem. Nothing to worry anyone. Not . . . a . . . thing, sarge.’
Jackrum looked from the startled squad to Polly, and back, and back again. She felt his
gaze boring into her, daring her to change her expression of mad, tense honesty.
‘Ye-es,’ he said slowly. ‘Right. Sorted out, eh? Well done, Perks. Attention! Officer
present!’
‘Yes, yes, sergeant, thank you, but I don’t think we need to be too formal,’ said Blouse,
who looked rather pale. ‘A word with you when you have finished, if you please? And I think
we should bury the, er, bodies.’
Jackrum saluted. ‘Right you are, sir. Two volunteers to dig a grave for those poor souls!
Goom and Tewt— what’s he doing?’
Lofty was over by the blazing charcoal oven. She was holding a burning branch a foot or
two from her face and turning it this way and that, watching the flames.
‘I’ll do it, sarge,’ said Tonker, stepping beside Wazzer.
‘What are you, married?’ said Jackrum. ‘You are on guard, Halter. I doubt whoever did
it’ll come back, but if they do, you sing out, right? You and Igor come with me, and I’ll show
you your stations.’
‘No coffee,’ moaned Maladict.
‘Foul muck, anyway,’ said Jackrum, walking away. ‘A cup of hot sweet tea is the soldier’s
friend.’
Polly grabbed the kettle for Blouse’s shaving water, and hurried away. That was another
thing you learned in the milit’ry: look busy. Look busy and no one worried too much about
what you were busy at.
Bloody, bloody Strappi! He’d got her hair! He’d try to use it against her if he could, that
was certain. That’d be his style. What would he do now? Well, he’d want to keep away from
Jackrum, that’d be another certainty. He’d wait, somewhere. She’d have to, too.
The squad had made camp upwind of the smoke. It was supposed to be a rest stop, since no
one had got much sleep last night, but as Jackrum handed out tasks he reminded them: ‘There
is an old milit’ry saying, which is: Hard Luck For You.’
There was no question of using the woven hut, but there were a few tarpaulin-covered
frames built to keep the coppiced wood dry. Those not given jobs to do lay down on the
stacked piles of twigs, which were yielding and didn’t smell and were in any case better than
the inhabited palliasses back at the barracks.
Blouse, as an officer, had a shelter to himself. Polly had stacked bundles of twigs to make a
chair that was at least springy. Now she laid out his shaving things and turned to go—

 
 
  
‘Could you shave me, Perks?’ said the lieutenant.
Fortunately, Polly’s back was turned and he didn’t see her expression.
‘This damn hand is quite swollen, I’m afraid,’ Blouse went on. ‘I would not normally ask,
but—’
‘Yes, of course, sir,’ said Polly, because there was no alternative. Well now, let’s see . . .
she’d got quite good at scraping a blunt razor across a face bare of hair, yes. Oh, and she’d
shaved a few dead pigs in the kitchens at The Duchess, but that was only because nobody
likes hairy bacon. They didn’t really count, did they? Panic rose, and rose faster at the sight
of Jackrum approaching. She was going to cut an officer’s throat in the presence of a
sergeant.
Well, when in doubt, bustle. Milit’ry rule. Bustle, and hope there’s a surprise attack.
‘Are you not being a little strict with the men, sergeant?’ said Blouse, as Polly flapped a
towel round his neck.
‘No, sir. Keep ‘em occupied, that’s the bunny. Otherwise they’ll mope,’ said Jackrum
confidently.
‘Yes, but they have just seen a couple of badly mutilated bodies,’ said Blouse, and
shuddered.
‘Good practice for ‘em, sir. They’ll see plenty more.’
Polly turned to the shaving gear she’d laid out on another towel. Let’s see . . . cut-throat
razor, oh dear, the grey stone for coarse sharpening, the red stone for fine sharpening, the
soap, the brush, the bowl . . . well, at least she knew how to make foam . . .
‘Deserters, sergeant. Bad business,’ Blouse went on.
‘You always get ‘em, sir. That’s why the pay is always late. Walking away from three
months’ back pay makes a man think twice.’
‘Mr de Worde the newspaper man said there had been a great many desertions, sergeant. It
is very strange that so many men would desert from a winning side.’
Polly whirled the brush vigorously. Jackrum, for the first time since Maladict had joined,
looked uncomfortable.
‘But whose side is he on, sir?’ he said.
‘Sergeant, I am sure you are not a stupid man,’ said Blouse, as, behind him, foam poured
over the edge of the bowl and flopped on to the floor. ‘There are desperate deserters abroad.
Our borders appear to be sufficiently unguarded to enable enemy cavalry to operate forty
miles inside “our fair country”. And High Command appears to be so desperate, yes,
desperate, sergeant, that even half a dozen untrained and, frankly, very young men must go to
the front.’
The foam had a life of its own now. Polly hesitated.
‘Hot towel first, please, Perks,’ said Blouse.
‘Yessir. Sorry, sir. Forgot, sir,’ said Polly, panic rising. She had a vague recollection of
walking past the barber shop in Munz. Hot towel on face. Right. She grabbed a small towel,
tipped boiling water on to it, wrung it out and placed it on the lieutenant’s face. He did not
actually scream, as such.
‘Aaaaagh something else worries me, sergeant.’

 
 
  
‘Yessir?’
‘The cavalry must have apprehended Corporal Strappi. I cannot see how else they found
out about our men.’
‘Good thinking, sir,’ said the sergeant, watching Polly apply the lather across mouth and
nose.
‘I do hope they didn’t pff torture the poor man,’ said the lieutenant. Jackrum was silent on
that issue, but meaningfully so. Polly wished he wouldn’t keep glancing at her.
‘But why would a deserter pff head straight for the pff front?’ said Blouse.
‘Makes sense, sir, for an old soldier. Especially a political.’
‘Really?’
‘Trust me on that, sir,’ said Jackrum. Behind Blouse, Polly brushed the razor up and down
the red stone. It was already as slick as ice.
‘But our boys, sergeant, are not “old soldiers”. It takes pff two weeks to turn a recruit into a
“fighting man”,’ said the lieutenant.
‘They’re promising material, sir. I could do it in a couple of days, sir,’ said Jackrum.
‘Perks?’
Polly nearly sliced her thumb off. ‘Yes, sarge,’ she quavered.
‘Do you think you could kill a man today?’
Polly glanced at the razor. The edge glowed. ‘I’m sorry to say I think I could, sir!’
‘There you have it, sir,’ said Jackrum, with a lopsided grin. ‘There’s something about these
lads, sir. They’re quick.’ He walked behind Blouse, took the razor from Polly’s grateful hand
without a word, and said: ‘There’s a few matters we ought to discuss, sir, private like. I think
Perks here ought to get some rest.’
‘Of course, sergeant. Pas devant les soldats jeuttes, eh?’
‘And them too, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘You’re dismissed, Perks.’
Polly walked away, her right hand still trembling. Behind her, she heard Blouse sigh and
say: ‘These are tricky times, sergeant. Command has never been so burdensome. The great
General Tacticus says that in dangerous times the commander must be like the eagle and see
the whole, and yet still be like the hawk and see every detail.’
‘Yessir,’ said Jackrum, gliding the razor down a cheek. ‘And if he acts like a common tit,
sir, he can hang upside down all day and eat fat bacon.’
‘Er . . . well said, sergeant.’
The charcoal-burner and his wife were buried to the accompaniment of, to Polly’s lack of
surprise, a small prayer from Wazzer. It asked the Duchess to intercede with the god Nuggan
to give eternal rest and similar items to the departed. Polly had heard it many times before;
she’d wondered how the process worked.
She’d never prayed since the day the bird burned, not even when her mother was dying. A
god that burned painted birds would not save a mother. A god like that was not worth a
prayer.