‘You hit a woman, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, and maybe when she wakes up in her corsets she’ll decide that next time a poor ol’ drunk fat man wanders in it mightn’t be such a good idea to try to roll him for his wad,’ growled Jackrum. ‘I’d be in a ditch wi’out my drawers on and a damned great headache if she’d had her way, and if you two was daft enough to complain to an officer she’d swear black was blue that I didn’t have a penny on me when I came in and was drunk and disorderly. And the colonel wouldn’t care a fig, ‘cos he’d reckon a sergeant daft enough to get caught like that had it coming to him. I know, you see. I look after my lads.’ There was a clink in the dark. ‘Plus a few extra dollars won’t go amiss.’
‘Sarge, you didn’t steal the cashbox, did you?’ said Polly.
‘Yeah. Got a good armful of her wardrobe, too.’
‘Good!’ said Shufti fervently. ‘It wasn’t a nice place!’
‘It was mostly my money in any case,’ said Jackrum. ‘Business has been a bit slow today, by the feel of it.’
‘But it’s immoral earnings!’ said Polly, and then felt a complete fool for saying it.
‘No,’ said Jackrum. ‘It was immoral earnings, now it’s the proceeds of common theft. Life’s a lot easier when you learns to think straight.’
Polly was glad there was no mirror. The best that could be said for the squad’s new clothing was that it covered them up. But this was a war. You seldom saw new clothes on anybody. Yet they felt awkward. And there was no sense in that at all. But they looked at one another in the chilly light of dawn and giggled in embarrassment. Wow, Polly thought, look at us: dressed as women.
Oddly enough, it was Igorina who really looked the part. She’d disappeared into the other tumbledown room carrying her pack. For ten minutes the squad had heard the occasional grunt or ‘ouch’, and then she’d returned with a full head of fair, shoulder-length hair. Her face was the right shape, missing the lumps and bumps they’d come to know. And the stitches on her forehead shrank and disappeared as Polly watched in astonishment.
‘Doesn’t that hurt?’ she said.
‘It smarts a bit for a few minutes,’ said Igorina. ‘You just have to have the knack. And the special ointment, of course.’
‘But why’s there a curved scar on your cheek now?’ said Tonker. ‘And those stitches are staying.’
Igorina looked down demurely. She’d even restyled one of the dresses into a dirndl, and looked like a fresh young maid from the beer cellar. Just to look at her was to mentally order a large pretzel.
‘You’ve got to have something to show,’ she said. ‘Otherwise you’re letting down the clan. And actually I think the stitches are rather fetching . . .’
‘Well, okay,’ Tonker conceded. ‘But lisp a bit, will you? I know this is completely wrong, but now you look, oh, I don’t know . . . weird, I suppose.’
‘Okay, line up,’ said Jackrum. He stood back, and gave them a look of theatrical disdain. ‘Well, I’ve never seen such a lot of scrubb— washerwomen in all my life,’ he said. ‘I wish you all the luck you’re bleeding well gonna need. There’ll be someone watching the door for you to come out, and that’s all I can promise. Private Perks, you’re acting, unpaid corporal on this one. I hope you’ve picked up one or two little lessons on our stroll. In and out, that’s what you should do. No famous last stands, please. When in doubt, kick ‘em in the nadgers and scarper. Mind you, if you frighten them like you frighten me, you should have no trouble.’
‘Are you sure you won’t join us, sarge?’ said Tonker, still trying not to laugh.
‘No, lad. You won’t get me in skirts. Everyone has their place, right? The place where they draw the line? Well, that’s mine. I’m pretty steeped in sin, one way and another, but Jackrum always shows his colours. I’m an old soldier. I’ll fight like a soldier does, in the ranks, on the battlefield. Besides, if Ixwent in there simpering in petticoats I’d never hear the end of it.
‘The Duchess says there is a d-different path for Sergeant Jackrum,’ said Wazzer.
‘And I don’t know if you don’t frighten me worst of all, Private Goom,’ said Jackrum. He hitched up his equatorial belt. ‘You’re right, though. When you’re inside I shall nip down, nice and quiet, and slip into our lines. If I can’t raise a little diversionary attack, my name’s not Sergeant Jackrum. And since it is Sergeant Jackrum, that proves it. Hah, there’s plenty of men in this man’s army that owe me a favour’ – he gave a little sniff – ‘or wouldn’t say no to my face. And plenty of likely lads who’ll want to tell their grandchildren they fought alongside Jackrum, too. Well, I’ll give ‘em their chance at real soldierin’.’
‘Sarge, it’ll be suicide to attack the main gates!’ said Polly.
Jackrum slapped his belly. ‘See this lot?’ he said. ‘It’s like having yer own armour. Bloke once stuck a blade in this up to the hilt and was as surprised as hell when I nutted him. Anyway, you lads’ll be making so much fuss the guards will be distracted, right? You’re relying on me, I’m relying on you. That’s milit’ry, that is. You give me a signal, any signal. That’s all I’ll need.’
‘The Duchess says your path takes you further,’ said Wazzer.
‘Oh yeah?’ said Jackrum jovially. ‘And where’s that, then? Somewhere with a good pub, I hope!’
‘The Duchess says, um, it should lead to the town of Scritz,’ said Wazzer. She said it quietly while the rest of the squad were laughing, less at the comment than as a way of losing some of the tension. But Polly heard it.
Jackrum really, really was good, she thought. The fleeting expression of terror was gone in an instant. ‘Scritz? Nothing there,’ he said. ‘Dull town.’
‘There was a sword,’ said Wazzer.
Jackrum was ready this time. There was not a flicker of expression, just the blank face that he was so good at. And that was odd, Polly thought, because there should have been something, even if it was only puzzlement.
‘Handled lots of swords in my time,’ he said dismissively. ‘Yes, Private Halter?’
‘There’s one thing you didn’t tell us, sarge,’ said Tonker, lowering her hand. ‘Why is the regiment called the Ins-and-Outs?’
‘First into battle, last out of the fray,’ said Jackrum automatically.
‘So why are we nicknamed the Cheesemongers?’
‘Yes,’ said Shufti. ‘Why, sarge? Because the way those girls were talking, it sounded like it’s something we ought to know.’
Jackrum made a clicking noise of exasperation. ‘Oh, Tonker, why the hell did you wait ‘til you’d got your trousers off before asking me that? I’ll feel embarrassed telling yer now!’ And Polly thought: that’s bait, right? You want to tell us. You want to get any conversation away from Scritz . . .
‘Ah,’ said Tonker. ‘It’s about sex, then, is it?’
‘Not as such, no . . .’
‘Well, tell me, then,’ said Tonker. ‘I’d like to know before I die. If it makes you feel any better I’ll nudge people and go gnher, gnher, gnher.’
Jackrum sighed. ‘There’s a song,’ he said. ‘It starts “Twas on a Monday morning, all in the month of May—’
‘Then it is about sex,’ said Polly flatly. ‘It’s a folk song, it starts with ‘twas, it takes place in May, QED it’s about sex. Is a milkmaid involved? I bet there is.’
‘There could be,’ Jackrum conceded.
‘Going for to market? For to sell her wares?’ said Polly.
‘Very likely.’
‘O-kay. That gives us the cheese. And she meets, let’s see, a soldier, a sailor, a jolly ploughboy or just possibly a man clothed all in leather, I expect? No, since it’s about us, it’ll be a soldier, right? And since it’s one of the Ins-and-Outs . . . oh dear, I feel a humorous double-entendre coming on. Just one question: what item of her clothing fell down or came untied?’
‘Her garter,’ said Jackrum. ‘You’ve heard it before, Perks.’
‘No, but I just know how folk songs go. We had folk singers in the lower bar for six months back horn— where Iworked. In the end we had to get a man in with a ferret. But you remember stuff . . . oh, no . . .’
‘Was there canoodling, sarge?’ said Tonker, grinning.
‘Kayaking, I expect,’ said Igorina, to general sniggering.
‘No, he stole the cheese, didn’t he?’ sighed Polly. ‘As the poor girl was lying there waiting for her garter to be tied, hem hem, he damn well made off with her cheese, right?’
‘Er . . . not damn. Not with the skirt on, Ozz,’ Tonker warned.