The sergeant had folded up, but with his face level with his knees he managed to croak: ‘Old war wound, sir. Come upon me sudden, like.’
‘Please help him, Private Igor. Where was I . . . I can see you all look puzzled, but there’s nothing strange about this. Fine old tradition, men dressing up as gels. In the sixth form, the chaps used to do it for a jape all the time.’ He paused for a moment, and added thoughtfully, ‘Especially Wrigglesworth, for some reason . . .‘ He shook his head as if dislodging a thought and went on: ‘Anyway, I have some experience in this field, d’ye see?’
‘And . . . what would you do if— I mean when you got in, sir?’ said Polly. ‘You won’t just have to fool the guards. There’ll be other women in there.’
‘That will not present a problem, Perks,’ said Blouse. ‘I shall act in a feminine way and I have this stage trick, d’ye see, where I make my voice sound quite high-pitched, like this.’ The falsetto could have scratched glass. ‘See?’ he said. ‘No, if we need a woman, I’m your man.’
‘Amazing, sir,’ said Maladict. ‘For a moment I could have sworn there was a woman in the room.’
‘And I could certainly find out if there are any other badly guarded entrances,’ Blouse went on. ‘Who knows, I might even be able to procure a key off one of the guards by means of feminine wiles! In any case, if things are all clear I shall send a signal. A towel hanging from a window, perhaps. Something clearly unusual, anyway.’
There was some more silence. Several of the squad were staring at the ceiling.
‘Ye-es,’ said Polly. ‘I can see you’ve thought this out carefully, sir.’
Blouse sighed. ‘If only Wriggles worth were here,’ he said.
‘Why, sir?’
‘Amazingly clever chap at layin’ his hands on a dress, young Wrigglesworth,’ said the lieutenant.
Polly caught Maladict’s eye. The vampire made \ face and shrugged.
‘Um . . .’ said Shufti.
‘Yes, Manickle?’
‘I do have a petticoat in my pack, sir.’
‘Good heavens! Why?’
Shufti went red. She hadn’t worked out an answer.
‘Bandageth, thur,’ Igorina cut in smoothly.
‘Yes! Yes! That’s right!’ said Shufti. ‘I . . . found it in the inn, back in Plün . . .’
‘I athked the lads to acquire any thuitable linen they might find, thur. Jutht in cathe.’
‘Very sound thinking, that man!’ said Blouse. ‘Anyone else got anything?’
‘I wouldn’t be at all thurprithed, thur,’ said Igorina, staring round the room.
Glances were exchanged. Packs were unslung. Everyone except Polly and Maladict had something, produced with downcast eyes. A shift, a petticoat and, in most cases, a dimity scarf, carried out of some sort of residual, unexplainable need.
‘You obviously must’ve thought we’d take serious damage,’ said Blouse.
‘Can’t be too careful, thur,’ said Igorina. She grinned at Polly.
‘Of course, I have rather short hair at present . . .’ Blouse mused.
Polly thought of her ringlets, now lost and probably stroked by Strappi. But desperation spooled through her memory.
‘They looked like older women, mostly,’ she said quickly. ‘They wore headscarves and wimples. I’m sure Igori— sure Igor can make up something, sir.’
‘We Igorth are very rethortheful, thur,’ Igorina agreed. She pulled a black leather wallet out of her jacket. ‘Ten minuteth with a needle, thur, that’th all I need.’
‘Oh, I can do old women wonderfully well,’ said Blouse. With a speed that made Lofty jump, he suddenly thrust out both hands twisted like claws, contorted his face into an expression of mad imbecility and screeched, ‘Oh deary me! My poor old feet! Things today aren’t what they used to be! Lawks!’
Behind him, Sergeant Jackrum put his head in his hands.
‘Amazing, sir,’ said Maladict. ‘I’ve never seen a transformation like it!’
‘Perhaps just a wee bit less old, sir?’ Polly suggested, although in truth Blouse had reminded her of her Auntie Hattie two-thirds of the way through a glass of sherry.
‘You think so?’ said Blouse. ‘Oh, well, if you’re really sure.’
‘And, er, if you do meet a guard, er, old women don’t usually try to, try to—’
‘—canoodle—’ whispered Maladict, whose mind had clearly been hurtling down the same horrible slope.
‘—canoodle with them,’ Polly finished, blushing, and then after a second’s thought added, ‘Unless she’s had a glass of sherry, anyway.’
‘And I do thuggetht you go and have a thhave, thur . . .’
‘Thhave?’ said Blouse.
‘Shave, sir,’ said Polly. ‘I’ll lay out the kit, sir.’
‘Ooh, yes. Of course. Don’t see many old women with beards, eh? Except my Auntie Parthenope, as I recall. And . . . er . . . no one’s got a couple of balloons, have they?’
‘Er, why, sir?’ said Tonker.
‘A big bosom always gets a laugh,’ said Blouse. He looked round the row of faces. ‘Not a good idea, perhaps? I got a huge round of applause as the Widow Trembler in ‘Tis Pity She’s A Tree. No?’
‘I think Igor could sew something a bit more, er, realistic, sir,’ said Polly.
‘Really? Oh, well, if you really think so . . .’ said Blouse dejectedly. ‘I’ll just go and get myself into character.’
He disappeared into the building’s only other room. After a few seconds, the rest of them heard him reciting ‘Lawks, my poor feet!’ in varying tones of fingernail screech.
The squad went into a huddle.
‘What was all that about?’ said Tonker.
‘He was talking about the theatre,’ said Maladict.
‘What’s that?’
‘An Abomination unto Nuggan, of course,’ said the vampire. ‘It’d take too long to explain, dear child. People pretending to be other people to tell a story in a huge room where the world is a different place. Other people sitting and watching them and eating chocolate. Very, very abominable.’
‘I saw a Punch and Judy show in the town once,’ said Shufti. ‘Then they dragged the man away and it became an Abomination.’
‘I remember that,’ said Polly. Crocodiles should not be seen to eat figures of authority, apparently, although until the puppet show no one in the town knew what a crocodile was. The bit where the clown had beaten his wife had also constituted an Abomination, because he’d used a stick thicker than the regulation one inch.
The lieutenant won’t last a minute, you know,’ she said.
‘Yes, but he won’t lithten, will he?’ said Igorina. ‘I’ll do my betht with my scissorth and needle to make a woman of him, but—’
‘Igorina, when it’s you talking about this sort of thing some very strange pictures turn up in my head,’ said Maladict.
‘Sorry,’ said Igorina
‘Can you pray for him, Wazzer?’ said Polly. ‘I think we’re going to need a miracle here.’
Wazzer obediently closed her eyes and folded her hands for a moment and then said shyly: ‘I’m afraid she says it will take more than a turkey.’
‘Wazz?’ said Polly. ‘Do you really—’ Then she stopped, with the bright little face watching her.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Wazzer. ‘I really talk to the Duchess.’
‘Yeah, well, I used to, too,’ snapped Tonker. ‘I used to beg her, once. That stupid face just stared and did nothing. She never stopped anything. All that stuff, all that stupid—’ The girl stopped, too many words blocking her brain. ‘Anyway, why should she talk to you?’
‘Because I listen,’ said Wazzer quietly.
‘And what does she say?’
‘Sometimes she just cries.’
‘She cries?’
‘Because there are so many things that people want, and she can’t give them anything.’ Wazzer gave them all one of her smiles that lit up the room. ‘But everything will be fine when I am in the right place,’ she said.
‘Well, that’s all right, then—’ Polly began, in that cloud of deep embarrassment that Wazzer called up within her.
‘Yeah, right,’ said Tonker. ‘But I’m not praying to anyone, okay? Ever again. I don’t like this, Wazz. You’re a decent kid, but I don’t like the way you smile—’ She stopped. ‘Oh, no . . .’
Polly stared at Wazzer. Her face was thin and all angles, and the Duchess in the painting had looked, well, like an overfed turbot, but now the smile, the actual smile . . .
‘I’m not putting up with that!’ Tonker snarled. ‘You stop that right now! I mean it! You’re giving me the creeps! Ozz, you stop her— him smiling like that!’
‘Just calm down, all of you—’ Polly began.
‘Bleedin’ well shut up!’ said Jackrum. ‘A man can’t hear himself chew. Look, you’re all edgy. That happens. And Wazzer here’s just got a bit of religion before the fight. That happens, too. And what you do is, you save it all up for the enemy. Quieten down. That is what we in the milit’ry call an order, okay?’
‘Perks?’ It was Blouse.
‘You’d better hurry,’ said Maladict. ‘His corset probably wants lacing . . .’