They looked up without much interest.
‘This is Faith, Prudence, Grace and Comfort,’ said the lady of the house. ‘The night shift has not yet come on, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m sure these beauties will be a great education for my roaring boys,’ said the sergeant. ‘But . . . may I be so bold as to enquire about your name, madarm?’
‘I’m Mrs Smother, sergeant.’
‘And do you have a first name, may I ask?’
‘Dolores,’ said Mrs Smother, ‘to my . . . special friends.’
‘Well now, Dolores,’ said Jackrum, and there was another jingle of coins in his pocket, ‘I will come right out with it and be frank, because I can see you are a woman of the world. These frail blossoms are all very well in their way, for I know the fashion these days is for ladies with less meat on ‘em than a butcher’s pencil, but a gentleman such as me, who has been around the world and seen a thing or two, well, he learns the value of . . . maturity.’ He sighed. ‘Not to mention Hope and Patience.’ The coins jingled again. ‘Perhaps you and I might retire to some suitable boodwah, madarm, and discuss the matter over a cordial or two?’
Mrs Smother looked from the sergeant to the ‘lads’, glanced back in the anteroom, and looked back at Jackrum with her head on one side and a thin, calculating smile on her lips.
‘Ye-es,’ she said. ‘You’re a fine figure of a man, Sergeant Smith. Let us take a load off your . . . pockets, shall we?’
She joined arm-in-arm with the sergeant, who winked roguishly at Polly and Shufti. ‘We’re well set, then, lads!’ he chuckled. ‘Now, just so’s you don’t get carried away, when it’s time to go I’ll blow my whistle and you better finish what you’re doin’, haha, and meet me sharpish. Duty calls! Remember the fine tradition of the Ins-and Outs!’ Giggling and almost tripping up, he left the room on the arm of the proprietress.
Shufti sidled hurriedly up to Polly and whispered: ‘Is sarge all right, Ozzer?’
‘He’s just had a bit too much to drink,’ said Polly loudly, as all four of the girls stood up.
‘But he—’ Shufti got a nudge in the ribs before she could say any more. One of the girls carefully laid down her knitting, took Polly’s arm, flashed her finely crafted expression of interest and said, ‘You’re a well-set-up young man, aren’t you . . . what’s your namer dear? I’m Grade.’
‘Oliver,’ said Polly. And what the hell is the fine tradition of the Ins-and-Outs?
‘Ever seen a woman with no clothes on before, Oliver?’ The girls giggled.
Polly’s brow wrinkled as, just for a moment, she was caught unawares. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Of course.’
‘Ooo, it looks like we’ve got ourselves a regular Don Joo-ann, girls,’ said Gracie, stepping back. ‘We may have to send out for reinforcements! Why don’t you an’ me and Prudence go off to a little nook I know, and your little friend will be the guest of Faith and Comfort. Comfort’s very good with young men, ain’t you, Comfort?’
Sergeant Jackrum had been wrong in his description of the girls. Three of them were indeed several meals short of a healthy weight, but when Comfort got up out of her large armchair you realized that it had, in fact, been quite a small armchair and had mostly been Comfort. For a large woman she had a small face, locked in a piggy-eyed scowl. There was a death’s head tattoo on one arm.
‘He’s young,’ said Gracie. ‘He’ll heal. Come along, Don Joo-ann . . .’
In a way, Polly was relieved. She didn’t take to the girls. Oh, the profession could bring anyone down, but she’d got to know some of her town’s ladies of uneasy virtue and they had an edge she couldn’t find here.
‘Why do you work here?’ she said, as they entered a smaller, canvas-walled room. There was a rickety bed taking up most of the space.
‘You know, you look a bit too young to be that sort of customer,’ said Gracie.
‘What sort?’ said Polly.
‘Oh, a holy joe,’ said Gracie. ‘ “What’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?” and all that stuff. Feel sorry for us, do you? At least if someone cuts up rough we’ve got Garry outside and after he’s finished with the bloke the colonel gets told and the bastard gets bunged in clink.’
‘Yeah,’ said Prudence. ‘From what we hear we’re the safest ladies within twenty-five miles. Old Smother’s not too bad. We get money to keep and we get fed and she don’t beat us, which is more than can be said for husbands, and you can’t wander around loose, now, can you?’
Jackrum put up with Blouse because you’ve got to have an officer, Polly thought. If you don’t have an officer, some other officer’ll take you over. And a woman by herself as missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master. Trousers. That’s the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: idiots! Get yourself some trousers!
‘Can you please get your clothes off?’ she said. ‘I think we’d better hurry.’
‘One of the Ins-and-Outs, this one,’ said Gracie, slipping her dress off her shoulders. ‘Keep an eye on your cheeses, Pru!’
‘Er . . . why does that mean we’re in the Ins-and-Outs?’ said Polly. She made a show of unbuttoning her jacket, wishing that she believed in anyone there to pray to so that she could pray for the whistle.
‘That’s ‘cos you lads always have your eye on business,’ said Gracie.
And maybe there was someone listening, at that. The whistle blew.
Polly grabbed the dresses and ran out, oblivious of the yells behind her. She collided with Shufti outside, tripped over the groaning form of Garry, saw Sergeant Jackrum holding the tent flap open, and bulleted into the night.
‘This way!’ the sergeant hissed, grabbing her by the collar before she’d gone a few feet and swinging her round. ‘You too, Shufti! Move!’
He ran up the side of the wash like a child’s balloon being blown by the wind, leaving them to scramble after him. His arms were full of clothing, which snagged and danced behind him. Up above was knee-deep scrub, treacherous in the gloom. They tripped and staggered across it until they reached heavier growth, whereupon the sergeant got hold of both of them and pushed them into the bushes. The shouts and screams were fainter now.
‘Now we’ll just keep quiet, like,’ he whispered. ‘There’s patrols about.’
‘They’ll be bound to find us,’ Polly hissed, while Shufti wheezed.
‘No, they won’t,’ said Jackrum. ‘First, they’ll all be running towards the shoutin’, because that’s natur— there they go . . .’ Polly heard more shouts in the distance. ‘And bloody fools they are, too. They’re supposed to be guarding the perimeter, and they’re running towards trouble in the camp. And they’re running straight towards lamplight, so there goes their night eyes! If I was their sergeant they’d be due a fizzer! C’mon.’ He stood up, and hauled Shufti to her feet. ‘Feeling all right, lad?’
‘It w-was horrible, sarge! One of them put her hand . . . on . . . on my socks!’
‘Something that doesn’t often happen, I’ll bet any man,’ said Jackrum. ‘But you did a good job. Now, we’ll walk nice and quiet, and no more talking ‘til I say, okay?’
They plodded on for ten minutes, skirting the camp. They heard several patrols, and saw a couple of others on the hilltops as the moon rose, but it dawned on Polly that, loud though the shouting had been, it was only part of the huge patchwork of sound that rose from the camp. The patrols this far away probably hadn’t heard it, or at least were commanded by the kinds of soldiers who didn’t want to get put on a fizzer.
In the dark, she heard Jackrum take a deep breath. ‘Okay, that’s far enough. Not a bad job of work, lads. You’re real Ins-and-Outs now!’
‘That guard was out cold,’ said Polly. ‘Did you hit him?’
‘Y’see, I’m fat,’ said Jackrum. ‘People don’t think fat men can fight. They think fat men are funny. They think wrong. Gave ‘im a chop to the windpipe.’
‘Sarge!’ said Shufti, horrified.
‘What? What? He was coming at me with his club!’ said Jackrum.
‘Why was he doing that, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Ooh, you cunning soldier, you,’ said Jackrum. ‘All right, I grant you that I’d just given madarm the ol’ quietus, but to be fair I know when someone’s just handed me a bleedin’ drink full o’ sleepy drops.’