Discworld 30 - Monstrous Regiment (40 page)

 
 
  
‘No one would believe yer,’ said Jackrum, at last.
‘Who would I want to tell?’ said Polly. ‘And you’re right. No one would believe me. I’d
believe you, though.’
Jackrum stared into his fresh mug of beer, as if trying to see the future in the foam. He
seemed to reach a decision, pulled the gold chain out of his noisome vest, unfastened the
locket, and gently snapped it open.
‘There you go,’ he said, passing it across. ‘Much good may it do you.’
There was a miniature painting in each side of the locket: a dark-haired girl, and a blond
young man in the uniform of the Ins-and-Outs.
‘Good one of you,’ said Polly.
‘Pull the other one, it’s got bells on,’ said Jackrum.
‘No, honestly,’ said Polly. ‘I look at the picture, and look at you . . . I can see that face in
her face. Paler, of course. Not so . . . full. And who was the boy?’
‘William, his name was,’ said Jackrum.
‘Your sweetheart?’
‘Yes.’
‘And you followed him into the army . . .’
‘Oh, yeah. Same old story. I was a big strong girl, and . . . well, you can see the picture.
The artist did his best, but I was never an oil painting. Barely a watercolour, really. Where I
came from, what a man looked for in a future wife was someone who could lift a pig under
each arm. And a couple of days later I was lifting a pig under each arm, helping my dad, and
one of my clogs came off in the muck and the ol’ man was yelling at me and I thought: the
hell with this, Willie never yelled. Got hold of some men’s clothes, never you mind how, cut
my hair right off, kissed the Duchess, and was a Chosen Man within three months.’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s what we used to call a corporal,’ said Jackrum. ‘Chosen Man. Yeah, I smiled about
that, too. And I was on my way. The army’s a piece of piss compared to running a pig farm
and looking after three lazy brothers.’
‘How long ago was that, sarge?’
‘Couldn’t say, really. I swear I don’t know how old I am, and that’s the truth,’ said
Jackrum. ‘Lied about my age so often I ended up believing me.’ She began, very carefully, to
transfer the chewing tobacco into the new bag.
‘And your young man?’ said Polly quietly.
‘Oh, we had great times, great times,’ said Jackrum, stopping for a moment to stare at
nothing. ‘He never got promoted on account of his stutter, but I had a good shouty voice and
officers like that. But Willie never minded, not even when I made it to sergeant. And then he
got killed at Sepple, right next to me.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t have to be, you didn’t kill him,’ said Jackrum evenly. ‘But I stepped over his
body and skewered the bugger that did. Wasn’t his fault. Wasn’t my fault. We were soldiers.
And then a few months later I had a bit of a surprise, and he was called William, too, just like

 
 
  
his father. Good job I had a bit of leave, eh? Me gran raised him for me, put him to a trade as
an armourer over in Scritz. Good trade, that. No one kills a good armourer. They tell me he
looks just like his dad. A captain I met once had bought a bloody good sword off him.
Showed it to me, not knowin’ the hist’ry, o’ course. Damn good sword. It had scrollwork on
the hilt and everything, very classy. He’s married with four kids now, I heard. Got a carriage
and pair, servants, big house . . . yeah, I see you’re paying attention . . .’
‘Wazzer - well, Wazzer and the Duchess said—’
‘Yeah, yeah, they talked about Scritz, and a sword,’ said Jackrum. ‘That’s when I knew it
wasn’t just me watchin’ over you lads. I knew you’d survive. The old girl needed you.’
‘So you’ve got to go there, sarge.’
‘Got to? Who says? I’ve served the old girl the whole of my life, and she’s got no call on
me now. I’m my own man, always have been.’
‘Are you, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Are you crying, Perks?’
‘Well . . . it’s a bit sad, sarge.’
‘Oh, I dare say I sobbed a bit too, once in a while,’ said Jackrum, still tucking the tobacco
into the new pouch. ‘But when all’s said and done, I’ve had a good life. Saw the cavalry
break at the Battle of Slomp. I was part of the Thin Red Line that turned aside the Heavy
Brigade at Sheep’s Drift, I saved the Imperial flag from four real bastards at Raladan, and
I’ve been to a lot of foreign countries and met some very interesting people, who I mostly
subsequently killed before they could do me over good and proper. Lost a lover, still got a
son . . . there’s many a woman who’s faced worse, believe me.’
‘And . . . you spotted other girls . . .’
‘Hah! Became a kind of hobby, really. Most of ‘em were frightened little things, running
away from god knows what. They got found out soon enough. And there were plenty like
Shufti, chasin’ their lad. But there were a few who had what I call the twinkle. A bit of fire,
maybe. They just needed pointing in the right direction. I gave them a leg up, you might say.
A sergeant’s a powerful man, sometimes. A word here, a nod there, sometimes even doctorin’
some paperwork, a whisper in the dark—’
‘—a pair of socks,’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, that sort of thing,’ said Jackrum, grinning. ‘Always a big concern to them, the
whole latrine business. Least of your worries, I used to say. In peace no one cares, in battle
everyone takes a piss the same way, and damn quickly, too. Oh, I helped ‘em. I was their
whatsit, their eminence grease, and grease it was, too, slidin’ them to the top. Jackrum’s
Little Lads, I called ‘em.’
‘And they never suspected?’
‘What, suspect Jolly Jack Jackrum, so full of rum and vinegar?’ said Jackrum, the old evil
grin coming back. ‘Jack Jackrum, who could stop a bar fight by belchin’? No, sir! I dare say
some of ‘em suspected something, maybe, I dare say they worked out that there was
something going on somewhere, but I was just the big fat sergeant who knew everyone and
everything and drank everything, too.’
Polly dabbed at her eyes. ‘What are you going to do now, then, if you don’t go to Scritz?’

 
 
  
‘Oh, I’ve got a bit put by,’ said Jackrum. ‘More than a bit, in point of actual fact. Pillage,
plunder, loot . . . it all adds up, what ever you call it. I didn’t piss it all up against a wall like
the other lads, right? I expect I can remember most of the bleedin’ places I buried it. Always
thought I might open an inn, or maybe a knocking shop . . . oh, a proper high class place, you
don’t have to look at me like that, nothin’ like that stinking tent. No, I’m talkin’ about one
with a chef and chandeliers and a lot of red velvet, very exclusive. I’d get some nobby lady to
front it and I’d be the bouncer and run the bar. Here’s a tip, lad, for your future career, and
it’s one some of the other Little Lads learned for ‘emselves: sometimes it’ll help if you visits
one of them naughty places, otherwise the men’ll wonder about you. I always used to take a
book to read and advise the young lady to get some sleep, ‘cos they does a tough job.’
Polly let that pass, but said: ‘You don’t want to go back and see your grandchildren?’
‘Wouldn’t wish meself on him, lad,’ said Jackrum firmly. ‘Wouldn’t dare. My boy’s a
well-respected man in the town! What’ve I got to offer? He’ll not want some fat ol’ biddy
banging on his back door and gobbing baccy juice all over the place and telling him she’s his
mother!’
Polly looked at the fire for a moment, and felt the idea creep into her mind. ‘What about a
distinguished sergeant major, shiny with braid, loaded with medals, arriving at the front door
in a grand coach and telling him he’s his father?’ she said.
Jackrum stared.
‘Tides of war, and all that,’ Polly went on, mind suddenly racing. ‘Young love. Duty calls.
Families scattered. Hopeless searching. Decades pass. Fond memories. Then . . . oh, an
overheard conversation in a bar, yeah, that’d work. Hope springs. A new search. Greasing
palms. The recollections of old women. At last, an address—’
‘What’re you saying, Perks?’
‘You’re a liar, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘Best I’ve ever heard. One last lie pays for all! Why not?
You could show him the locket. You could tell him about the girl you left behind you . . .’
Jackrum looked away, but said: ‘You’re a shining bastard of a thinker, Perks. And where
would I get a grand coach, anyway?’
‘Oh, sarge! Today? There are . . . men in high places who’ll give you anything you ask for,
right now. You know that. Especially if it means they’d see the back of you. You never put
the bite on them for anything much. If I was you, sarge, I’d cash in a few favours while you
can. That’s the Ins-and-Outs, sarge. Take the cheese while it’s there, ‘cos kissin’ don’t last.’
Jackrum took a deep, long breath. ‘I’ll think about it, Perks. Now you push off, all right?’
Polly stood up. ‘Think hard, sarge, eh? Like you said, anyone who’s got anyone left is
ahead of the game right now. Four grandchildren? I’d be a proud kid if I had a grandad who
could spit tobacco juice far enough to hit a fly on the opposite wall.’
‘I’m warning you, Perks.’
‘It was just a thought, sarge.’
‘Yeah . . . right,’ Jackrum growled.
‘Thanks for getting us through it, sarge.’
Jackrum didn’t turn round.
‘I’ll be going, then, sarge.’

 
 
  
‘Perks!’ said Jackrum, as she reached the door. Polly stepped back into the room.
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘I . . . expected better of ‘em, really. I thought they’d be better at it than men. Trouble was,
they were better than men at being like men. They do say the army can make a man of you,
eh? So . . . whatever it is you are going to do next, do it as you. Good or bad, do it as you.
Too many lies and there’s no truth to go back to.’
‘Will do, sarge.’
‘That’s an order, Perks. Oh . . . and Perks?’
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘Thanks, Perks.’
Polly paused when she got to the door. Jackrum had turned her chair to the fire, and had
settled back. Around him, the kitchen worked.
Six months passed. The world wasn’t perfect, but it was still turning.
Polly had kept the newspaper articles. They weren’t accurate, not in the detail, because the
writer told . . . stories, not what was actually happening. They were like paintings, when you
had been there and had seen the real thing. But it was true about the march on the castle, with
Wazzer on a white horse in front, carrying the flag. And it was true about people coming out
of their houses and joining the march, so that what arrived at the gates was not an army but a
sort of disciplined mob, shouting and cheering. And it was true that the guards had taken one
look at it and had seriously reconsidered their future, and that the gates had swung open even
before the horse had clattered on to the drawbridge. There was no fighting, no fighting at all.
The shoe had dropped. The country had breathed out.
Polly didn’t think it was true that the painting of the Duchess, alone on its easel in the big,
empty throne room, had smiled when Wazzer walked towards it. Polly had been there and
didn’t see it happen, but lots of people swore it had, and you might end up wondering what
the truth really was, or whether there were lots of different kinds of truth.
Anyway, it had worked. And then . . .
. . . they went home. A lot of soldiers did, under the fragile truce. The first snows were
already falling and, if people had wanted a war, then the winter had given them one. It came
with lances of ice and arrows of hunger, it filled the passes with snow, it made the world as
distant as the moon . . .
That was when the old dwarf mines had opened up, and pony after pony emerged. It had
always been said there were dwarf tunnels everywhere, and not just tunnels; secret canals
under the mountains, docks, flights of locks that could lift a barge a mile high in busy
darkness, far below the gales on the mountain tops.
They brought, indeed, cabbage and potatoes and roots and apples and barrels of fat, things
that kept. And winter was defeated, and the snowmelt roared down the valleys, and the Kneck
scrawled its random wiggles across the flat silt of the valley.
They’d gone home, and Polly wondered if they’d ever really been away. Were we soldiers?
she wondered. They’d been cheered on the road to PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHans-
JosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg, and had been much better treated than their rank deserved,

 
 
  
and even had a special uniform designed for them. But the vision of Gummy Abbens kept
rising in her mind . . .
We weren’t soldiers, she decided. We were girls in uniform. We were like a lucky charm.
We were mascots. We weren’t real, we were always a symbol of something. We’d done very
well, for women. And we were temporary.
Tonker and Lofty were never going to be dragged back to the school now, and they’d gone
their own way. Wazzer had joined the general’s household, and had a room of her own, and
quietness, and made herself useful and was never beaten. She’d written Polly a letter, in tiny
spiky handwriting. She seemed happy; a world without beatings was heaven. Jade and her
beau had wandered off to do something more interesting, as trolls very sensibly did. Shufti . .
. had been on a timetable of her own. Maladicta had disappeared. And Igorina had set up by
herself in the capital, dealing with women’s problems, or at least those women’s problems
that weren’t men. And senior officers had given them medals, and watched them go with
fixed, faint smiles. Kisses don’t last.
And, now, it wasn’t that good things were happening, it was just that bad things had
stopped. The old women still grumbled, but they were left to grumble. No one had any
directions, no one had a map, no one was quite certain who was in charge. There were
arguments and debates on every street corner. It was frightening and exhilarating. Every day
was an exploration. Polly had worn a pair of Paul’s old trousers to clean the floor of the big
bar, and had got barely a ‘hurrumph’ from anyone. Oh, and the Girls’ Working School had
burned down, and on the same day two slim masked figures had robbed a bank. Polly had
grinned when she heard that. Shufti had moved into The Duchess. Her baby was called Jack.
Paul doted on it. And now . . .
Someone had been drawing in the gents’ privy again. Polly couldn’t wash it off, so she
contented herself with correcting the anatomy. Then she swooshed the place clean - at least,
clean by pub urinal standards - with a couple of buckets and ticked off the chore, just as she
did every morning. When she arrived back in the bar there were a group of worried men
there, talking to her father. They looked mildly frightened when she strode in.
‘What’s happening?’ she said.
Her father nodded to Gummy Abbens, and everyone stepped back a little. What with the
spittle and the bad breach, you never wanted a conversation with Gummy to be particularly
intimate.
‘The swede-eatersh is at it again!’ he said. ‘They’re gonna invade ‘cos the Prince saysh we
belong to him now!’
‘It’s all down to him being the Duchess’s distant cousin,’ said Polly’s father.
‘But I heard it still wasn’t settled!’ said Polly. ‘Anyway, there’s still a truce!’
‘Sheems like he’s shettling it,’ said Gummy.
The rest of the day passed at an accelerated pace. There were groups of people talking
urgently in the streets, and a crowd around the gates to the town hall. Every so often a clerk
would come out and nail another communique on the gates; the crowd would close over it
like a hand, open again like a flower. Polly elbowed her way to the front, ignoring the
mutterings around her, and scanned the sheets.
The same old stuff. They were recruiting again. The same old words. The same old
croakings of long dead soldiers, inviting the living to join them. General Froc might be