‘And you were right, kiddo,’ he said to Polly, over Blouse’s shoulder. ‘Cryin’ shame you ain’t an officer, eh?’
The last of the fallen tea dribbled into the soil. Polly reached slowly for her crossbow.
‘Don’t. One step, one move from any of you, and I’ll cut him,’ said the sergeant. ‘Won’t be the first officer I’ve killed, believe me—’
‘The difference between them and me is, I don’t care.’
Five heads turned. There was Jackrum, outlined against the distant firelight. He had the man’s own bow, drawn taut, and aimed directly at the sergeant in complete disregard of the fact that the lieutenant’s head was in the way. Blouse closed his eyes.
‘You’d shoot your own officer?’ said Towering.
‘Yep. Won’t be the first officer I’ve killed, neither,’ said Jackrum. ‘You ain’t going anywhere, friend, except down. Easy or hard . . . I don’t care.’ The bow creaked.
‘You’re just bluffing, mister.’
‘Upon my oath, I am not a bluffing man. I don’t think we was ever introduced, by the way. Jackrum’s the name.’
The change in the man was a whole body event. He seemed to get smaller, as if every cell had said ‘oh dear’ very quietly to itself. He sagged, and Blouse slumped a little.
‘Can I—’
‘Too late,’ said Jackrum.
Polly never forgot the sound the arrow made.
There was silence, and then a thump as Towering’s body finally overbalanced and hit the ground.
Jackrum laid the bow aside carefully. ‘Found out who he was messing with,’ he said, as if nothing much had happened. ‘Shame, really. Seemed like a decent sort. Any saloop left, Perks?’
Very slowly, Lieutenant Blouse raised his hand to his ear, which the arrow had perforated en route to its target, and then looked with strange detachment at the blood on his fingers.
‘Oh, sorry about that, sir,’ said Jackrum jovially. ‘Just saw the one chance and I thought, well, it’s the fleshy part. Get yourself a gold earring, sir, and you’ll be the height of fashion! Quite a large gold earring, maybe.
‘Don’t you all believe that stuff about the Ins-and-Outs,’ Jackrum went on. ‘That was just lies. I like it when something’s up. So what we do now is . . . can anyone tell me what we do now?’
‘Er . . . bury the body?’ hazarded Igorina.
‘Yeah, but check his boots. He’s got small feet and the Zlobenians have much better boots than us.’
‘Steal the boots off a dead man, sarge?’ said Wazzer, still in shock.
‘Easier than getting ‘em off a live one!’ Jackrum softened his voice a little when he saw their expressions. ‘Lads, this is war, understand? He was a soldier, they were soldiers, you are soldiers . . . more or less. No soldier will see scran or good boots go to waste. Bury ‘em decent and say what prayers you can remember, and hope they’ve gone where there’s no fighting.’ He raised his voice back to the normal bellow. ‘Perks, round up the others! Igor, cover the fire, try to make it look like we were never here! We are moving out in number ten minutes! Can make a few miles before full daylight! That’s right, eh, lieutenant?’
Blouse was still transfixed, but seemed to wake up now. ‘What? Oh. Yes. Right. Yes, indeed. Er . . . yes. Carry on, sergeant.’
The fire gleamed off Jackrum’s triumphal face. In the red glow his little dark eyes were like holes in space, his grinning mouth the gateway to a hell, his bulk some monster from the Abyss.
He let it happen, Polly knew. He obeyed orders. He^didn’t do anything wrong. But he could have sent Maladict and Jade to help us, instead of Wazzer and Igor, who aren’t quick with weapons. He sent the others away. He had the bow ready. He played a game with us as pieces, and won . . .
Poor old soldier, her father and his friends had sung, while frost formed on the window panes, poor old soldier! If ever I ‘list for a soldier again . . . the devil shall be my sergeant!
In the firelight the grin of Sergeant Jackrum was a crescent of blood, his coat the colour of a battlefield sky. ‘You are my little lads,’ he roared. ‘And I will look after you.’
They made more than six miles before Jackrum called a halt, and already the land was changing. There were more rocks, fewer trees. The Kneck valley was rich and fertile and it was from here that the fertility had been washed; it was a landscape of ravines and thick scrub woodland, with a few small communities scratching a living from the poverty-stricken soil. It was a good place to hide. And, in here, someone had already hidden. It was a stream-carved gully, but here at the end of summer the stream was just a trickle between the rocks. Jackrum must have found it by smell, because you couldn’t see it from the track.
The ashes of the fire in the small gully were still warm. The sergeant got up, awkwardly, after inspecting them. ‘Some lads like our pals from last night,’ he said.
‘Couldn’t it just be a hunter, sarge?’ said Maladict.
‘It could, corporal, but it ain’t,’ said Jackrum. ‘I brought you in here ‘cos it looks like a blind gully and there’s water and there’s good vantage points up there and over there,’ he pointed, ‘and there’s a decent overhang to keep the weather off and it’s hard for anyone to creep up on us. Milit’ry, in other words. And someone else thought the same as me last night. So while they’re out there looking for us, we’ll sit snug where they’ve already looked. Get a couple of lads up on guard right now.’
Polly drew first watch, atop the small cliff at the edge of the gully. It was a good site, no doubt about it. A regiment could hide here. No one could get near without being seen, too. And she was pulling her weight like a proper member of the squad, so with any luck Blouse would find someone to shave him before she was off duty. Through a gap in the treetops below she could see a road of sorts running through the woodland. She kept an eye on it.
Eventually, Tonker relieved her with a cup of soup. On the far side of the gully, Wazzer was being replaced by Lofty.
‘Where’re you from, Ozz?’ said Tonker, while Polly savoured the soup.
There couldn’t be any harm in telling. ‘Munz,’ said Polly.
‘Really? Someone said you worked in a bar. What was the inn called?’
Ah . . . there was the harm, right there. But she could hardly lie, now. ‘The Duchess,’ she said.
‘That big place? Very nobby. Did they treat you okay?’
‘What? Oh . . . yes. Yes. Pretty fair.’
‘Hit you at all?’
‘Eh? No. Never,’ said Polly, nervous of where this was going.
‘Work you hard?’
Polly had to consider this. In truth, she worked harder than both the maids, and they at least had an afternoon off every week.
‘I was usually the first one up and the last one to bed, if that’s what you mean,’ she said. And to change the subject quickly, she went on: ‘What about you? You know Munz?’
‘We both lived there, me and Tilda— I mean Lofty,’ said Tonker.
‘Oh? Where?’
‘The Girls’ Working School,’ said Tonker, and looked away.
And that’s the kind of trap small talk can get you in, Polly thought. ‘Not a nice place, I think,’ she said, feeling stupid.
‘It was not a nice place, yes. A very nasty place,’ said Tonker. ‘Wazzer was there, we think. We think it was her. Used to be sent out a lot on work hire.’ Polly nodded. Once, a girl from the school came and worked as a maid at The Duchess. She’d arrive every morning, scrubbed raw in a clean pinafore, peeling off from a line of very similar girls led by a teacher and flanked by a couple of large men with long sticks. She was skinny, polite in a dull, trained sort of way, worked very hard and never talked to anybody. She was gone in three months, and Polly never found out why.
Tonker stared into Polly’s eyes, almost mocking her innocence. ‘We think she was the one they used to lock up sometimes in the special room. That’s the thing about the school. If you don’t toughen up you go funny in the head.’
‘I expect you were glad to leave,’ was all Polly could think of to say.
‘The basement window was unlocked,’ said Tonker. ‘But I promised Tilda we’d go back one day next summer.’
‘Oh, so it wasn’t that bad, then?’ said Polly, grateful for some relief.
‘No, it’ll burn better,’ said Tonker. ‘Ever run across someone called Father Jupe?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Polly, and, feeling that something more was expected of her, added, ‘He used to come to dinner when my mother— he used to come to dinner. A bit pompous, but he seemed okay.’