‘Yes,’ said Tonker. ‘He was good at seeming.’
Once again there was a dark chasm in the conversation that not even a troll could bridge, and all you could do was draw back from the edge.
‘I’d better go and see to the lieu— to the rupert,’ Polly said, standing up. ‘Thank you very much for the soup.’
She worked her way down through the scree and birch thickets until she emerged by the little stream that ran through the gully. And there, like some awful river god, was Sergeant Jackrum.
His red coat, a tent for lesser men, was draped carefully over a bush. He himself was sitting on a rock with his shirt off and his huge braces dangling, so that only a yellowing woolly vest saved the world from a sight of the man’s bare chests. For some reason, though, he’d kept his shako on. His shaving kit, with a razor like a small machete and a shaving brush you could use to hang wallpaper, was on the rock beside him.
Jackrum was bathing his feet in the stream. He glanced up when Polly approached, and nodded amiably.’ ‘morning, Perks,’ he said. ‘Don’t rush. Never rush for ruperts. Sit down for a spell. Get yer boots off. Let yer feet feel the fresh air. Look after your feet, and your feet will look after you.’ He pulled out his big clasp-knife and the rope of chewing tobacco. ‘Sure you won’t join me?’
‘No thanks, sarge.’ Polly sat down on a rock on the opposite side of the stream, which was only a few feet wide, and started to tug at her boots. She felt as though she’d been given an order. Besides, right now she felt she needed the shock of clean, cold water.
‘Good lad. Filthy habit. Worse’n the smokes,’ said Jackrum, carving off a lump. ‘Got started on it when I was but a lad. Better’n striking a light at night, see? Don’t want to give away your position, ‘course, you gotta gob a bundle every so often, but gobbin’ in the dark don’t show up.’
Polly dabbled her feet. The icy water did indeed feel refreshing. It seemed to jolt her alive. In the trees around the gully, birds sang.
‘Say it, Perks,’ said Jackrum, after a while.
‘Say what, sarge?’
‘Oh, bleedin’ hell, Perks, it’s a nice day, don’t muck me around. I seen the way you’ve been looking at me.’
‘All right, sarge. You murdered that man last night.’
‘Really? Prove it,’ said Jackrum calmly.
‘Well, I can’t, can I? But you set it up. You even sent Igor and Wazzer to guard him. They’re not good with weapons.’
‘How good would they have to be, d’you think? Four of you against a man tied up?’ said Jackrum. ‘Nah. That sergeant was dead the moment we got ‘im, and he knew it. It took a bloody genius like your rupert to make him think he’d got a chance. We’re out in the woods, lad. What was Blouse gonna do with him? Who’d we hand him over to? Would the lieutenant cart him around with us? Or tie him to a tree and leave him to kick wolves away until he gets too tired? Much more gentlemanly than giving him a quiet cigarette and a swift chop where you go quick, which is what he was expecting and what I’d have given him.’
Jackrum popped the tobacco into his mouth. ‘You know what most of the milit’ry training is, Perks?’ he went on. ‘All that yelling from little spitbubs like Strappi? It’s to turn you into a man who will, on the word of command, stick his blade into some poor sod just like him who happens to be wearing the wrong uniform. He’s like you, you’re like him. He doesn’t really want to kill you, you don’t really want to kill him. But if you don’t kill him first, he’ll kill you. That’s the start and finish of it. It don’t come easy without trainin’. Ruperts don’t get that trainin’, ‘cos they are gentlemen. Well, upon my oath I am no gentleman, and I’ll kill when I have to, and I said I’d keep you safe and no damn rupert’s going to stop me. He gave me my discharge papers!’ Jackrum added, radiating indignance. ‘Me! And expected me to thank him! Every other rupert I’ve served under has had the sense to write “Not posted here” or “On extended patrol” or something and shove it back in the mail, but not him!.’
‘What was it you said to Corporal Strappi that made him run away?’ said Polly, before she could stop herself.
Jackrum looked at her for a while, with no expression in his eyes. Then he gave a strange little chuckle. ‘Now why would a little lad like you say a little thing like that?’ he said.
‘Because he just vanished and suddenly some old rule means you’re back on the strength, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘That’s why I said that little thing.’
‘Hah! And there’s no such rule, either, not like that one,’ said Jackrum, splashing his feet. ‘But ruperts never read the book of rules unless they’re trying to find a reason to hang you, so I was safe there. Strappi was scared shitless, you know that.’
‘Yes, but he could have slipped away later on,’ said Polly. ‘He wasn’t stupid. Rushing off into the night? He must’ve had something real close to run from, right?’
‘Cor, that’s an evil brain you have there, Perks,’ said Jackrum happily. Once again Polly had the definite feeling that the sergeant was enjoying this, just as he’d seemed pleased when she’d protested about the uniform. He wasn’t a bully like Strappi – he treated Igorina and Wazzer with something approaching fatherly concern – but with Polly and Maladict and Tonker he pushed all the time, wanting you to push back.
‘It does the job, sarge,’ she said.
‘I just had a little tate-ah-tate with him, as it were. Quiet, like. Explained all the nasty things that can happen vees-ah-vee the confusion o’ war.’
‘Like being found with his throat cut?’ said Polly.
‘Has been known to happen,’ said Jackrum innocently. ‘You know, lad, you’re going to make a damn good sergeant one day. Any fool can use his eyes and ears, but you uses that brain to connect ‘em up.’
‘I’m not going to be a sergeant! I’m going to get the job done and go home!’ said Polly vehemently.
‘Yes, I said that once, too.’ Jackrum grinned. ‘Perks, I don’t need no clacky thing. I don’t need no newsy paper. Sergeant Jackrum knows what’s going on. He talks to the men coming back, the ones that won’t talk to anyone else. I know more than the rupert, for all that he gets little letters from HQ that worry him so much. Everyone talks to Sergeant Jackrum. And in his big fat head, Sergeant Jackrum puts it all together. Sergeant Jackrum knows what’s going on.’
‘And what’s that, sarge?’ said Polly innocently.
Jackrum didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he reached down with a grunt and rubbed one of his feet. The corroded shilling on a string, which had lain innocently on the woollen vest, swung forward. But there was something else. For a moment something golden slipped out of the vest’s open neck. Something oval and golden, on a golden chain, flashed in the sunlight. Then he straightened up and it was dragged back out of sight.
‘This is a bloody odd war, lad,’ he said. ‘It’s true there’s not just Zlobenian soldiers out there. Lads say there’s uniforms they’d never seen before. We’ve kicked a lot of backsides over the years, so maybe they really have ganged up and it’s gonna be our turn. But what I reckon is, they’re stuck. They took the keep. Oh, yes, I know. But they’ve got to hold on to it. And winter’s coming and all those lads from Ankh-Morpork and everywhere are a long way from home. We might have a chance yet. Hah, especially now the Prince is dead set on finding the young soldier that kneed him in the wedding tackle. That means he’s angry. He’ll make mistakes.’
‘Well, sarge, I think—’
‘I’m glad you do, Private Perks,’ said Jackrum, suddenly becoming a sergeant again. ‘And I think that after you’ve seen to the rupert and had a nap, you and me is going to show the lads some swordsmanship. Whatever bleedin’ war this is, sooner or later young Wazzer is going to have to use that blade he waggles about. Get going!’
Polly found Lieutenant Blouse sitting with his back to the cliff, eating scubbo out of a bowl. Igorina was packing away her medical kit, and Blouse’s ear was bandaged.
‘Everything all right, sir?’ she said. ‘Sorry I wasn’t—’
‘I quite understand, Perks, you must stand your turn like the other “lads”,’ said Blouse, and Polly heard the inverted commas clank into place. ‘I had a refreshing nap and the bleeding and, indeed, the shaking has quite stopped. However . . . I do still need a shave.’