In fact Blouse was sitting on what remained of a chair.
‘Ah, Perks. A shave, please,’ he said.
‘Oh, I thought your hand was better, sir . . .’
‘Er . . . yes.’ Blouse looked awkward. ‘The problem, Perks, is . . . I have never actually shaved myself at all, to be honest. I had a man to do it for me at school, and then of course in the army I shared a batman with Blitherskite and, er, those attempts I made on my own behalf have been somewhat bloody. I never really thought about it until I got to Plotz and, er . . . suddenly it was embarrassing . . .’
‘Sorry about that, sir,’ said Polly. It was a strange old world.
‘Later on perhaps you could give me a few tips,’ Blouse went on. ‘You keep yourself beautifully shaven, I can’t help noticing. General Froc would be pleased. He’s very anti-whiskers, they say.’
‘If you like, sir,’ said Polly. There was no getting out of it. She made a show of sharpening the razor. Perhaps she could manage it with only a few small cuts . . .
‘Do you think I should have a reddened nose?’ said Blouse.
‘Probably, sir,’ said Polly. Sarge knows about me, I’m sure, she thought. I know he does. Why’s he keeping quiet?
‘Probably, Perks?’
‘What? Oh. No . . . why a red nose, sir?’ said Polly, applying the lather with vigour.
‘It would look more pff amusing, perhaps.’
‘Not sure that’s the purpose of the exercise, sir. Now, if you’d just, er, lie back, sir—’
‘There’s something you should know about young Perks, sir.’
Polly actually yelped. Walking as silently as only a sergeant can, Jackrum had stolen into the room.
‘pff Sergeant?’ said Blouse.
‘Perks doesn’t know how to shave a man, sir,’ said Jackrum. ‘Give me the razor, Perks.’
‘Doesn’t know how to shave?’ said Blouse.
‘Nosir. Perks lied to us, right, Perks?’
‘All right, sarge, no need to drag it out,’ sighed Polly. ‘Lieutenant, I’m—’
‘—under age,’ said Jackrum. ‘Right, Perks? Only fourteen, aren’t you?’ He looked at Polly over the top of the lieutenant’s head, and winked.
‘Er . . . I told a lie to get enlisted, sir, yes,’ said Polly.
‘I don’t think a lad like that ought to be dragged into the keep, however game he is,’ said Jackrum. ‘And I don’t think he’s the only one. Right, Perks?’
Oh, so that’s the game. Blackmail, Polly thought.
‘Yes, sarge,’ she said wearily.
‘Can’t have a massacre of little lads, sir, now can we?’ said Jackrum.
‘I see your pff point, sergeant,’ said the lieutenant, as Jackrum gently drove the blade down his cheek. ‘That is a tricky one.’
‘Best to call it a day, then?’ said Jackrum.
‘On the other hand, sergeant, I do know that you pff yourself joined up as a child,’ said Blouse. The blade stopped moving.
‘Well, it was all different in those—’ Jackrum began.
‘You were five years old, apparently,’ the lieutenant went on. ‘You see, when I heard that I would be meeting you, a legend in the army, of course I had a look at our files so that I could, perhaps, make a few timely jokes in presenting you with your honourable discharge. You know, humorous little reminiscences about times gone by? Imagine how puzzled I was, therefore, to find that you appear to have been drawing actual wages for, well, it was a little hard to be certain, but possibly as much as sixty years.’
Polly had put a keen edge on the razor. It rested against the lieutenant’s cheek. Polly thought about the murder – oh, all right, the killing of an escaping prisoner – in the wood. It won’t be the first officer I’ve killed . . .
‘Probably one of them clerical errors, sir,’ said Jackrum coldly. In the gloomy room, with moss now colonizing the walls, the sergeant loomed large.
An owl, perched on the chimney, gave a screech. It echoed down into the room.
‘In fact no, sergeant,’ said Blouse, apparently oblivious of the razor. ‘Your package, sergeant, had been tampered with. On numerous occasions. Once, even by General Froc. He deducted ten years from your age and signed the change. And he wasn’t the only one. Frankly, sergeant, I’m forced to only one conclusion.’
‘And what’s that, sir?’ The razor halted again, still pressed against Blouse’s neck. The silence seemed to last for some time, sharp and drawn out.
‘That there was some other man called Jackrum,’ said Blouse slowly, ‘whose records have . . . got mixed up with yours and . . . every attempt to sort it out by officers who were, er, not entirely at home with figures only made it more confusing.’
The razor started to move again, with silky smoothness. ‘I think you’ve put your finger right on it, sir,’ said Jackrum.
‘I am going to write an explanatory note and add it to the packet,’ Blouse went on. ‘It seems to me the sensible thing to do would be to ask you here and now how old you are. How old are you, sergeant?’
‘Forty-three, sir,’ said Jackrum instantly. Polly looked up, expecting the generic thunderclap that ought to accompany such a universe-sized untruth.
‘Are you sure?’ said Blouse.
‘Forty-five, sir. The hardships of a soldier’s life show up onna face, sir.’
‘Even so—’
‘Ah, I recall a couple of extra birthdays what had slipped my memory, sir. I’m forty-seven, sir.’ Still no rumble of celestial disapproval, Polly noticed.
‘Er . . . yes. Very well. After all, you should know, eh, sergeant? I shall amend it.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Just like General Froc did. And Major Galosh. And Colonel Legin, sergeant.’
‘Yessir. Clerical error has followed me around all the days of my life, sir. I’ve been a martyr to it.’ Jackrum stood back. ‘There we are, sir. Face as smooth as a baby’s bum. Smooth is how things should be, eh, sir? I’ve always liked things smooth.’
They watched Lieutenant Blouse walk down through the trees to the path. They watched him join the erratic, straggling line of women on their way to the door. They listened for screams, and heard none.
‘D-does any woman sway that much?’ said Wazzer, peering through the bushes.
‘Not legally, I think,’ said Polly, scanning the keep with the lieutenant’s telescope. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait for some sort of signal that he’s okay.’
Somewhere overhead, a buzzard screamed.
‘No, they’ll have got him the moment he walked through the door,’ said Maladict. ‘Bet on it.’
They left Jade on watch. With her paint scraped off, a troll could settle into rocky scenery so well that no one was likely to notice her before they walked into her, and by the time they’d walked into her it was too late.
They made their way back through the woods, and had almost reached the ruined farmhouse when it happened.
‘You are holding up well, Mal,’ said Polly. ‘Maybe those acorns did the trick? You haven’t mentioned coffee at all—’
Maladict stopped, and turned slowly. To Polly’s horror, his face was suddenly shiny with sweat. ‘You had to bring it up, didn’t you?’ he said hoarsely. ‘Oh, please, no! I was holding on so tight! I was doing so well!’ He fell forward, but managed to get on to his hands and knees. Then he raised his head, and his eyes were glowing red. ‘Fetch . . . Igorina,’ he muttered, gasping. ‘I know she’s ready for this . . .’
. . . whopwhopwhop . . .
Wazzer was praying furiously. Maladict tried to stand up again, fell back on to his knees, and raised his arms imploringly to the sky.
‘Get out of here while you can,’ he mumbled, as his teeth visibly lengthened. ‘I’ll—’
There was a shadow, a sense of movement, and the vampire slumped forward, stunned by an eight-ounce sack of coffee beans that had dropped out of a clear sky.
Polly arrived at the farmhouse carrying Maladict on her shoulder. She made him as comfortable as possible on some ancient straw, and the squad consulted.
‘Do you think we ought to try to take the sack out of his mouth?’ said Shufti nervously.
‘I tried, but he fights,’ said Polly.
‘But he’s unconscious!’
‘He still won’t let go of it! He’s sucking it. I’d swear he was out cold, but he just sort of reached out and grabbed it and bit! It dropped out of a clear sky!’
Tonker stared at Wazzer. ‘The Duchess does room service?’ she said.
‘No! She says she d-didn’t!’
‘You get freak rainth of fish,’ said Igorina, kneeling down by Maladict. ‘I suppose it’s possible that a whirlwind tore through a coffee plantation, and then possibly a lightning discharge in the upper ether—’
‘At what point did it blow through a factory making small coffee sacks?’ said Tonker. ‘Ones with a jolly turbaned man printed on them apparently saying “Klatchian Rare Roasted! When a Pickaxe is Not Enough!”‘