To the bewilderment of all, Strappi continued – alone – all through the second verse, which nobody ever remembered, and then gave them a smug, I’m-more-patriotic-than-you smile.
Afterwards, they tried to sleep on as much softness as two blankets could provide. They lay there in silence for some time. Jackrum and Strappi had tents of their own, but instinctively they knew that Strappi at least would be a sneaker and a listener at tent flaps.
After about an hour, when rain was drumming on the canvas, Carborundum said: ‘Okay, den, I fink I’ve worked it out. If people are groophar stupid, then we’ll fight for groophar stupidity, ‘cos it’s our stupidity. And dat’s good, yeah?’
Several of the squad sat up in the darkness, amazed at this.
‘I realize I ought to know these things, but what does “groophar” mean?’ said the voice of Maladict in the damp darkness.
‘Ah, well . . . when, right, a daddy troll an’ a mummy troll—’
‘Good, right, yes, I think I’ve got it, thank you,’ said Maladict. ‘And what you’ve got there, my friend, is patriotism. My country, right or wrong.’
‘You should love your country,’ said Shufti.
‘Okay, what part?’ the voice of Tonker demanded, from the far corner of the tent. ‘The morning sunlight on the mountains? The horrible food? The damn mad Abominations? All of my country except whatever bit Strappi is standing on?’
‘But we are at war!’
‘Yes, that’s where they’ve got you,’ sighed Polly.
‘Well, I’m not buying into it. It’s all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It’s only your country when they want you to get killed!’ said Tonker.
‘All the good bits in this country are in this tent,’ said the voice of Wazzer.
Embarrassed silence descended.
The rain settled in. After a while, the tent began to leak. Eventually someone said, ‘What happens, um, if you join up but then you decide you don’t want to?’
That was Shufti.
‘I think it’s called deserting and they cut your head off,’ said the voice of Maladict. ‘In my case that would be a drawback but you, dear Shufti, would find it puts a crimp in your social life.’
‘I never kissed their damn picture,’ said Tonker. ‘I swivelled it round when Strappi wasn’t looking and kissed it on the back!’
‘They’ll still say you kissed the Duchess, though,’ said Maladict.
‘You k-kissed the D-Duchess on the b-bottom?’ said Wazzer, horrified.
‘It was the back of the picture, okay?’ said Tonker. ‘It wasn’t her real backside. Huh, wouldn’t have kissed it if it was!’ There was some unidentified sniggering from various corners and just a hint of giggle.
‘That was w-wicked!’ hissed Wazzer. ‘Nuggan in heaven saw you d-do that!’
‘It was just a picture, all right?’ muttered Tonker. ‘Anyway, what’s the difference? Front or back, we’re all here together and I don’t see any steak and bacon!’
Something rumbled overhead. ‘I joined t’ see exciting forrin places and meet erotic people,’ said Carborundum.
That caused a moment’s thought. ‘I think you mean exotic?’ said Igor.
‘Yeah, that kind of stuff,’ agreed the troll.
‘But they always lie,’ said someone, and then Polly realized it was her. ‘They lie all the time. About everything.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Tonker. ‘We fight for liars.’
‘Ah, they may be liars,’ snapped Polly, in a passable imitation of Strappi’s yap, ‘but they’re our liars!’
‘Now, now, children,’ said Maladict. ‘Let’s try to get some sleep, shall we? But here’s a happy little dream from your Uncle Maladict. Dream that when we go into battle, Corporal Strappi is leading us. Wouldn’t that be fun?’
After a while, Tonker said: ‘In front of us, you mean?’
‘Oh, yes. I can see you’re with me, Tonk. Right in front of you. On the noisy, frantic, confusing battlefield, where oh so much can go wrong.’
‘And we’ll have weapons?’ said Shufti wistfully.
‘Of course you’ll have weapons. You’re soldiers. And there’s the enemy, right in front of you . . .’
‘That’s a good dream, Mai.’
‘Sleep on it, kid.’
Polly turned over, and tried to make herself comfortable. It’s all lies, she thought muzzily. Some of them are just prettier than others, that’s all. People see what they think is there. Even I’m a lie. But I’m getting away with it.
A warm autumnal wind was blowing leaves off the rowan trees as the recruits marched among the foothills. It was the morning of the next day, and the mountains were behind them. Polly passed the time identifying the birds in the hedgerows. It was a habit. She knew most of them.
She hadn’t set out to be an ornithologist. But birds brought Paul alive. All the . . . slowness in the rest of his thinking became a flash of lightning in the presence of birds. Suddenly he knew their names, habits and habitats, could whistle their songs and, after Polly had saved up for a box of paints off a traveller at the inn, had painted a picture of a wren so real you could hear it.
Their mother had been alive then. The row had gone on for days. Pictures of living creatures were an Abomination in the Eyes of Nuggan. Polly had asked why there were pictures of the Duchess everywhere, and had been thrashed for it. The picture had been burned, the paints thrown away.
It was a terrible thing. Her mother had been a kind woman, or as kind as a devout woman could be who tried to keep up with the whims of Nuggan, and she’d died slowly amidst pictures of the Duchess and amongst the echoes of unanswered prayers, but that was the memory that crawled treacherously into Polly’s mind every time: the fury and the scolding, while the little bird seemed to flutter in the flames.
In the fields women and old men were getting in the spoilt wheat after last night’s rain, hoping to save what they could. There weren’t any young men visible. Polly saw some of the other recruits steal a glance at the scavenging parties, and wondered if they were thinking the same thing.
They saw no one else on the road until midday, when the party was marching through a landscape of low hills; the sun had boiled away some of the clouds and, for a moment at least, summer was back – moist and sticky and mildly unpleasant, like a party guest who won’t go home.
A red blob in the distance became a rather larger blob and resolved itself into a loose knot of men. Polly knew what to expect as soon as she saw it. By the reaction of some of the others, they did not. There was a moment of collision and confusion as people walked into one another, and then the party stopped, and stared.
It took the wounded men some time to draw level, and some time to pass. Two able-bodied men, as far as Polly could tell, were trundling a handcart on which a third man lay. Others were limping on crutches, or had arms in slings, or wore red jackets with an empty sleeve. Perhaps worse were the ones like the man in the inn, grey-faced, staring straight ahead, jackets buttoned tight despite the heat.
One or two of the injured glanced at the recruits as they lurched past, but there was no expression in their eyes beyond a terrible determination.
Jackrum reined in the horse.
‘All right, twenty minutes’ breather,’ he muttered.
Igor turned, nodded to the party of wounded heading grimly onward, and said, ‘Permithion to thee if I can do anything for them, tharge?’
‘You’ll get your chance soon enough, lad,’ said the sergeant.
‘Tharge?’ said Igor, looking hurt.
‘Oh, all right. If you must. D’you want someone to give you a hand?’
There was a nasty laugh from Corporal Strappi.
‘Some athithtance would be a help, yeth, thargeant,’ said Igor, with dignity.
The sergeant looked at the squad, and nodded. ‘Private Halter, step forward! Know anything about doctorin’?’
The red-headed Tonker stepped forward smartly. ‘I’ve butchered pigs for me mam, sarge,’ he said.
‘Capital! Better than an army surgeon, upon my oath. Off you go. Twenty minutes, remember!’
‘And don’t let Igor bring back any souvenirs!’ said Strappi, and laughed his scraping laugh again.
The rest of the boys sat down on the grass by the road, and one or two of them disappeared into the bushes. Polly went on the same errand, but pushed in a lot further, and took the opportunity to make a little sock adjustment. They had a tendency to creep if she wasn’t careful.
She froze at a rustling behind her, and then relaxed. She’d been careful. No one would have seen anything. So what if someone else was taking a leak? She’d just push her way back to the road and take no notice—
Lofty sprang up as Polly parted the bushes, breeches round one ankle, face red as a beetroot.