‘How’s he coming along, private?’ said Jackrum.
‘He’ll be fine, tharge,’ said Igor. ‘It looked worthe than it wath, really. Jutht ath well, because until we get to the battlefield I won’t get any thpareth.’
‘Got a couple of legs for ol’ Threeparts?’ said Jackrum.
‘Now then, sarge, none of that,’ said Scallot evenly. He was sitting on the other side of the fireplace. ‘You just leave me their horses and saddles. Your lads could do with their sabres, I’ve no doubt.’
‘They were looking for us, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘We’re just a bunch of untrained recruits and they were looking for us. I could’ve been killed, sarge!’
‘No, I know talent when I sees it,’ said Jackrum. ‘Well done, lad. Had to piss off myself, on account of a big man in full enemy uniform isn’t easy to miss. Besides, you lads needed to be woke up. That’s milit’ry thinking, that is.’
‘But if I hadn’t . . .’ Polly hesitated. ‘If I hadn’t tricked them, they might’ve killed the lieutenant!’
‘See? There’s always a positive side, any way you look at it,’ said Scallot.
The sergeant stood up, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and hitched up his belt. He ambled over to the captain, reached down, and lifted him up by his jacket.
‘Why were you looking for these boys, sir?’ he enquired.
The captain opened his eye and focused on the fat man.
‘I am an officer and a gentleman, sergeant,’ he muttered. ‘There are rules.’
‘Not many gentlemen around here at this moment, sir,’ said the sergeant.
‘Damn right,’ whispered Maladict. Polly, feeling drunk with relief and released tension, had to put her hand over her mouth to stop giggling.
‘Oh, yeah. The rules. Prisoners of war and that,’ Jackrum went on. ‘That means you even have to eat the same things as us, you poor devils. So you’re not going to talk to me?’
‘I am . . . Captain Horentz of the First Heavy Dragoons. I’ll say nothing more.’ And something about the way he said it elbowed Polly in the brain. He’s lying.
Jackrum stared at him blankly for a moment, and then said: ‘Well, now . . . it looks like what we have here is an embugger-ance which, my lads of the Cheesemongers, is defined as an obstruction in the way of progress. I propose to deal with it in this wise!’ He let go of the man’s jacket and the captain fell back.
Sergeant Jackrum removed his hat. Then he removed his jacket, too, revealing a stained shirt and bright red braces. He was still almost spherical; from his neck, folds of skin lapped their way down to the tropical regions. The belt must have been there just to conform to regulations, Polly thought.
He reached up and undid a piece of string from around his neck. It was looped through a hole in a tarnished coin.
‘Corporal Scallot!’ he said.
‘Yes, sarge!’ said Scallot, saluting.
‘You will note I am divestering myself of my insignia and am handing you my official shilling, which means, since last time I signed up it was for twelve years and that was sixteen years ago, I am now fully and legally a damn civilian!’
‘Yes, Mister Jackrum,’ said Scallot cheerfully. Among the prisoners, heads jerked up at the sound of the name.
‘And that being the case, and since you, captain, are invading our country by night under the cover of darkness, and I am a humble civilian, I think there’s no rule to stop me beating seven kinds of crap out of you until you tell me why you came here and when the rest of your mates are going to arrive. And that may take me some time, sir, because up until now I’ve only ever discovered five types of crap.’ He rolled up his sleeves, hauled up the captain again and drew back a fist—
‘We just had to take the recruits into custody,’ said a voice. ‘We weren’t going to hurt them! Now put him down, Jackrum, damn you! He’s still seeing stars!’
It was the sergeant from the inn. Polly looked at the other prisoners. Even with Carborundum and Maladict watching them, and Tonker glowering at them, there was a definite sense that the first blow landed on the captain was going to start a riot. And Polly thought: they are very protective, aren’t they . . .
Jackrum must have picked it up, too. ‘Ah, now we’re talking,’ he said, lowering the captain gently but still holding his coat. ‘Your men speak up for you well, captain.’
‘That’s because we’re not slaves, you bloody beeteater,’ growled one of the troopers.
‘Slaves? All my lads joined up of their own free will, turniphead.’
‘Maybe they thought they did,’ said the sergeant. ‘You just lied to ‘em. Lied to ‘em for years. They’re all gonna die because of your stupid lies! Lies and your raddled, rotting, lying old whore of a duchess!’
‘Private Goom, as you were! That is an order! As you were, I said! Private Maladict, take that sword off’f Private Goom! That is another order! Sergeant, order your men to ease back slowly! Slowly! Do it now! Upon my oath I am not a violent man, but any man, any man who disobeys me, bigod, that man is lookin’ at a broken rib!’
Jackrum screamed all that in one long explosion of sound without taking his eyes off the captain.
Reaction, order and breathless stillness had taken just a few seconds. Polly stared at the sudden tableau as her muscles untensed.
The Zlobenian troopers were settling back. Carborundum’s raised club began to lower itself gently. Little Wazzer was held off the ground by Maladict, who’d wrenched a sword from her hand; possibly only a vampire could have moved faster than Wazzer as she’d charged the prisoners.
‘Custody,’ said Jackrum, in a quiet voice. ‘That’s a funny word. Look at my little lads, will you? Not a whisker between them yet, save for the troll, and lichen don’t count. Still wet behind the ears, they are. What’s dangerous about a harmless bunch of farm boys that’d concern a fine bunch of horse-wallopers like yourselves?’
‘Can thomeone pleathe come and put their finger on thith knot?’ said Igor, from his makeshift operating table. ‘I’ve jutht about done.’
‘Harmless?’ said the sergeant, staring at the struggling Wazzer. ‘They’re a bunch of bloody madmen!’
‘I want to speak to your officer, damn you,’ said the captain, who looked a little less unfocused now. ‘You do have an officer, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, we’ve got one somewhere, as I recall,’ said Jackrum. ‘Perks, go and fetch the rupert, will you? Best if you take that dress off first, too. You never know, with ruperts.’ He carefully lowered the captain on to a bench, and straightened up.
‘Carborundum, Maladict, chop something off any prisoner who moves, and any man who tries to attack a prisoner!’ he said. ‘Now then . . . oh, yes. Threeparts Scallot, I wish to enlist in your wonderful army, with its many opportunities for a young man willing to apply himself.’
‘Any previous soldierin’?’ said Scallot, grinning.
‘Forty years fighting every bleeder within a hundred miles of Borogravia, corporal.’
‘Special skills?’
‘Stayin’ alive, corporal, come what may.’
‘Then allow me to present you with one shilling and immediate acceleration to the rank of sergeant,’ said Scallot, handing back the coat and the shilling. ‘Want to Osculate the Doxie?’
‘Not at my time o’ life,’ said Jackrum, putting on his jacket again. ‘There,’ he said. ‘All smart, all neat, all legal. Go on, Perks, I gave you an order.’
Blouse was snoring. His candle had burned down. A book was open on his blanket. Polly gently pulled it out from under his fingers. The title, almost invisible on the stained cover, was: Tacticus: The Campaigns.
‘Sir?’ she whispered.
Blouse opened his eyes, saw her, and then turned and frantically scrabbled by the bed.
‘Here they are, sir,’ said Polly, handing him his spectacles.
‘Ah, Perks, thank you,’ said the lieutenant, sitting up. ‘Midnight, is it?’
‘A bit after, sir.’
‘Oh, dear! Then we must hurry! Quick, pass me my breeches! Have the men had a good night?’
‘We were attacked by Zlobenian troops, sir. First Heavy Dragoons. We took them prisoner, sir. No casualties, sir.’ . . . because they didn’t expect us to fight. They wanted to take us alive. And they walked in on Carborundum and Maladict and . . . me.
It had been hard, very hard, to force herself to swing that cudgel. But once she had done it, it had been easy. And then she’d felt embarrassed about being caught in a petticoat, even though she had her breeches on underneath. She’d gone from boy to girl just by thinking it, and it had been so . . . easy. She needed some time to consider this. She needed time to think about a lot of things. She suspected that time was going to be in short supply.