Jackrum thought for a moment, and then jabbed a finger at the young man. ‘Joe Hubukurk, right?’ he said.
The smile broadened to the point where the top of the young man’s head was in danger of falling off. ‘He’ll be smirking all day when I tell him you remember him, sarge! He says that where you piss grass don’t grow!’
‘Well, what can a modest man say to that, eh?’ said Jackrum.
Then the young man frowned. ‘Funny, though, he thought you were dead, sarge,’ he said.
‘Tell him I bet him a shilling I’m not,’ said Jackrum. ‘And your name, lad?’
‘Lart, sarge. Lart Hubukurk.’
‘Glad you joined, are you?’
‘Yes, sarge,’ said Lart loyally.
‘We’re just having a stroll, lad. Tell your dad I asked after him.’
‘I will, sarge!’ The boy stood to attention like a one-man guard of honour. ‘This is a proud moment for me, sarge!’
‘Does everyone know you, sarge?’ whispered Polly, as they walked away.
‘Aye, pretty much. On our side, anyway. I’ll make so bold as to declare that most of the enemy that meets me don’t know any hing much afterwards.’
‘I never thought it was going to be like this!’ hissed Shufti.
‘Like what?’ said Jackrum.
‘There’s women and children! Shops! I can smell bread baking! It’s like a . . . a city.’
‘Yeah, but what we’re after isn’t going to be in the main streets. Follow me, lads.’ Sergeant Jackrum, suddenly furtive, ducked between two big heaps of boxes and emerged beside a smithy, its forge glowing in the dusk.
Here the tents were open-sided. Armourers and saddlers worked by lantern-light, shadows flickering across the mud. Polly and Shufti had to step out of the way of a mule train, each animal carrying two casks on its back; the mules moved aside for Jackrum. Maybe he’s met them before, too,’thought Polly, maybe he really does know everyone.
The sergeant walked like a man with the deeds to the world. He acknowledged other sergeants with a nod, lazily saluted the few officers there were around here, and ignored everybody else.
‘You been here before, sarge?’ said Shufti.
‘No, lad.’
‘But you know where you’re going?’
‘Correct. I ain’t been here, but I know battlefields, especially when everyone’s had a chance to dig in.’ Jackrum sniffed the air. ‘Ah, right. That’s the stuff. Just you two wait here.’
He disappeared between two stacks of lumber. They heard a distant muttering and, after a moment or two, he reappeared holding a small bottle.
Polly grinned. ‘Is that rum, sarge?’
‘Well done, my little bar steward. And wouldn’t it be nice if it was rum, upon my word. Or whisky or gin or brandy. But this don’t have none of those fancy names. This is the genuine stingo, this is. Pure hangman.’
‘Hangman?’ said Shufti.
‘One drop and you’re dead,’ said Polly. Jackrum beamed, as a master to a keen pupil.
‘That’s right, Shufti. It’s rotgut. Wheresoever men are gathered together, someone will find something to ferment in a rubber boot, distil in an old kettle and flog to his mates. Made from rats, by the smell of it. Ferments well, does your average rat. Fancy a taste?’
Shufti shied away from the proffered bottle. The sergeant laughed. ‘Good lad. Stick to beer,’ he said.
‘Don’t the officers stop it?’ said Polly.
‘Officers? What do they know about anything?’ said Jackrum. ‘An’ I bought this off of a sergeant, too. Anyone watching us?’
Polly peered into the gloom. ‘No, sarge.’
Jackrum poured some of the liquid into one pudgy hand and splashed it on to his face. ‘Ye-ouch,’ he hissed. ‘Stings like the blazes. And now to kill the tooth worms. Got to do the job properly.’ He took a quick sip from the bottle, spat it out, and shoved the cork back in. ‘Muck,’ he said. ‘Okay, let’s go.’
‘Where are we going, sarge?’ said Shufti. ‘You can tell us now, can’t you?’
‘A quiet little place where our needs will be met,’ said Jackrum. ‘It’ll be around here somewhere.’
‘You don’t half smell of drink, sarge,’ said Shufti. ‘Will they let you in if you smell drunk?’
‘Yes, Shufti, lad, they will,’ said Jackrum, setting off again. ‘The reason being, my pockets jingle and I smell of booze. Everyone likes a rich drunk. Ah . . . down this little valley here, that’ll be our . . . yeah, I was right. This is the place. Tucked away, delicate like. See any clothes hanging out to dry, boys?’
There were a few washing lines strung behind the half-dozen or so drab tents in this side valley, which was little more than a wash gouged out by winter rains. If there had been anything on them it had been taken in against the heavy dew.
‘Shame,’ said Jackrum. ‘Okay, so we’ll have to do it the hard way. Remember: just act natural and listen to what I say.’
‘I’m sh-shaking, sarge.’Shufti muttered.
‘Good, good, very natural,’ said Jackrum. ‘This is our place, I think. Nice and quiet, no one watching us, nice little path up there to the top of the wash . . .’ He stopped at a, very large tent and tapped on the board outside with his swagger stick.
‘The SoLid DoVes,’ Polly read.
‘Yeah, well, these ladies weren’t hired for their spelling,’ said Jackrum, pushing open the flap of the tent of ill repute.
Inside was a stuffy little area, a sort of canvas antechamber. A lady, lumpy and crowlike in a black bombazine dress, rose from a chair and gave the trio the most calculating look Polly had ever met. It finished off by putting a price on her boots.
The sergeant doffed his cap and in a jovial, rotund voice that peed brandy and crapped plum pudding said, ‘Good evening, madarml Sergeant Smith’s the name, yes indeed! An’ me and my bold lads here have been so fortunate as to acquire the spoils of war, if you catch my drift, and nothing would do for it but they were clamouring, clamouring to go to the nearest house of good repute for to have a man made of ‘em!’
Little beady eyes skewered Polly again. Shufti, ears glowing like signal beacons, was staring fixedly at the ground.
‘Looks like that’d be a job and a half,’ said the woman shortly.
‘You never spoke a truer word, madarm!’ beamed Jackrum. ‘Two of your fair flowers apiece should do it, I reckon.’ There was a clink as, staggering slightly, Jackrum put several gold coins on the rickety little table.
Something about the gleam of them thawed things no end. The woman’s face cracked into a smile as glutinous as slug gravy.
‘Well now, we are always honoured to entertain the Ins-and-Outs, sergeant,’ she said. ‘If you . . . gentlemen would like to step through to the, er, inner sanctum?’
Polly heard a very faint sound behind her, and turned. She hadn’t noticed the man sitting on a chair just inside the door. He had to be a man, because trolls weren’t pink; he made Eyebrow back in Plün look like some kind of weed. He wore leather, which was what she’d heard creaking, and he had his eyes just slightly open. When he saw her looking at him, he winked. It wasn’t a friendly wink.
There are times when a plan suddenly isn’t going to work. When you’re in the middle of it is not the time to find this out.
‘Er, sarge,’ she said. The sergeant turned, saw her frantic grimace, and appeared to spot the guard for the first time.
‘Oh dear, where’s my manners?’ he said, lurching back and fumbling in his pocket. He came up with a gold coin which he folded in the astonished man’s hand. Then he turned round, tapping the side of his nose with an expression of idiol knowingness.
‘A word of advice, lads,’ he said. ‘Always give the guard a tip.
He keeps the riff-riff-raff out, very important. Very important man.’
He stumbled back to the lady in black, and belched hugely. ‘And now, madarm, if we can meet these visions of loveliness you are hiding under this here bushel?’ he said.
It depended, Polly thought a few seconds later, on how and when and after drinking how much of what whether you had those visions. She knew about these places. Serving behind a bar can really broaden your education. There were a number of ladies back home who were, as her mother put it, ‘no better than they should be’, and at twelve years old Polly had got a slap for asking how good they should have been, then. They were an Abomination unto Nuggan, but men have always found space in their religion for a little sinning here and there.
The word to describe the four ladies seated in the room beyond, if you wanted to be kind, was ‘tired’. If you didn’t want to be kind a whole range of words were just hanging in the air.