In one movement he pulled a cutlass from his belt and brought it down on the paperwork between Froc’s hands. It bit through into the wood of the table, and stayed there.
Froc didn’t flinch. Instead he looked up and said calmly, ‘Hero though you may be, sergeant, I fear that you have gone too far.’
‘Have I gone the full fourteen miles yet, sir?’ said Jackrum.
For a moment there was no sound but that of the cutlass, vibrating to a halt. Froc breathed out. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘What is your request, sergeant?’
‘I notes you have my little lads before you, sir! I’m hearing that they are in a spot of bother, sir!’
‘The girls, Jackrum, are to be restrained in a place of safety. This is no place for them. And that is my order, sergeant.’
‘I said to ‘em when they signed up, sir, I said: if anyone drags you away they’ll have to drag me away, too, sir!’
Froc nodded. ‘Very loyal of you, sergeant, and very much in your character. Nevertheless—’
‘And I have information vital to these here deliberations, sir! There is something I must tell you, sir!’
‘Well, by all means tell us, man!’ said Froc. ‘You don’t have to take all—’
‘It requires that some of you gentlemen quit this room, sir,’ said Jackrum, desperately. He was still-at attention, still holding the salute.
‘Now you do ask too much, Jackrum,’ said Froc. ‘These are loyal officers of her grace!’
‘No doubt of it, sir! Upon my oath I am not a gossiping man, sir, but I will speak my piece to those I choose, sir, or speak it to the world. There’s ways to do that, sir, nasty new-fangled ways. Your choice, sir!’
At last, Froc coloured. He stood up abruptly. ‘Are you seriously telling me that you’d—’
‘This is my famous last stand, sir!’ said Jackrum, saluting again. ‘Do or die, sir!’
All eyes turned to Froc. He relaxed. ‘Oh, very well. It can’t do any harm to listen to you, sergeant. God knows you’ve earned it. But make it quick.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘But try this again and you’ll be on the biggest fizzer you can imagine.’
‘No worry there, sir. Never been one for fizzers. I will by your leave point to certain men . . .’
They were about half of the officers. They rose with greater or lesser protest, but rise they did, under Froc’s sapphire glare, and filed out into the corridor.
‘General, I protest!’ said a departing colonel. ‘We are being sent out of the room like naughty children while these . . . females are—’
‘Yes, yes, Rodney, and if our friend the sergeant doesn’t have a damn good explanation I’ll personally turn him over to you for punishment detail,’ said Froc. ‘But he’s entitled to his last wild charge if any man is. Go quietly, there’s a good chap, and keep the war going until we get there. And have you finished this strange charade, sergeant?’ he added, as the last of the officers left.
‘All but one last thing, sir,’ said Jackrum, and stamped over to the guards. They were at attention already, but nevertheless contrived to become more attentive. ‘You lads go outside this door,’ said the sergeant. ‘No one is to come close, understand. And I know you boys won’t try to eavesdrop, because of what’d happen to you if I ever found that you had done so. Off you go, hup, hup, hup!’
He shut the doors behind them and the atmosphere changed. Polly couldn’t quite detect how, but perhaps it was that the click of the doors had said ‘This is our secret’ and everyone present was in on it.
Jackrum removed his shako and laid it gently on the table in front of the general. Then he took off his coat and handed it to Polly, saying, ‘Hold this, Perks. It’s the property of her grace.’ He rolled up his sleeves. He relaxed his enormous red braces. And then, to Polly’s horror if not to her surprise, he brought out his paper screw of foul chewing tobacco and his blackened penknife.
‘Oh, I say—’ a major began, before a colleague nudged him into silence. Never had a man cutting a wad of black tobacco been the subject of such rapt, horrified attention.
‘Things are going well outside,’ he said. ‘Shame you aren’t all out there, eh? Still, the truth’s important too, right? And that’s what this tribunal is for, no doubt about it. It must be important, the truth, else you wouldn’t be here, am I right? ‘course I am.’
Jackrum finished the cut, palmed the stuff into his mouth and got it comfortable in a cheek, while the sounds of battle filtered through from outside. Then he turned and walked towards the major who had just spoken. The man cringed a little in his chair.
‘What’ve you got to say about the truth. Major Derbi?’ said Jackrum conversationally. ‘Nothing? Well, then, what shall I say? What shall I say about a captain who turned and ran sobbing when we came across a column of Zlobenians, deserting his own men? Shall I say that ol’ Jackrum tripped him up and pummelled him a bit and put the fear of . . . Jackrum into him, and he went back and ‘twas a famous victory he had that day, over two enemies, one of them being in his own head. And he came to ol’ Jackrum again, drunk with battle, and said more’n he ought . . .’
‘You bastard,’ said the major softly. ^
‘Shall I tell the truth today . . . Janet?’ said Jackrum.
The sounds of battle were suddenly much louder. They poured into the room like the water rushing to fill a hole in the ocean floor, but all the sound in the world could not have filled that sudden, tremendous silence.
Jackrum strolled on towards another man. ‘Good to see you here, Colonel Cumabund!’ he said cheerfully. ‘O’ course, you were only Lieutenant Cumabund when I was under your command. Plucky lad you were, when you led us against that detachment of Kopelies. And then you took a nasty sword wound in the fracas, or just above, and I got you through with rum and cold water, and found that plucky you might be, but lad you weren’t. Oh, how you gabbled away in your feverish delirium . . . Yes, you did. That’s the truth . . . Olga.’
He stepped round the table and started to stroll along behind the officers; those he passed stared woodenly ahead, not daring to turn, not daring to make any movement that would attract attention.
‘You could say I know something about all of yez,’ he said. ‘Quite a lot about some of you, just enough about most of you. A few of you, well, I could write a book.’ He paused just behind Froc, who stiffened.
‘Jackrum, I—’ he began.
Jackrum put a hand on each of Froc’s shoulders. ‘Fourteen miles, sir. Two nights, ‘cos we lay up by day, the patrols were that thick. Cut about pretty dreadful, you were, but you got better nursing from me than any sawbones, I’d bet.’ He leaned forward until his mouth was level with the general’s ear, and continued in a stage whisper: ‘What is there left about you that I don’t know? So . . . are you really looking for the truth . . . Mildred?’
The room was a museum of waxworks. Jackrum spat on the floor.
‘You cannot prove anything, sergeant,’ said Froc eventually, with the calm of an icefield.
‘Well now, not as such. But they keep telling me this is the modern world, sir. I don’t need proof, exactly. I know a man who’d have such a tale to tell, and it’d be in Ankh-Morpork in a couple of hours.’
‘If you leave this room alive,’ said a voice.
Jackrum smiled his evillest smile, and bore down on the source of the threat like an avalanche. ‘Ah! I thought one of yez would try that, Chloe, but I note you never made it beyond major, and no wonder since you try to bluff with no bleedin’ cards in your hand. Nice try, though. But, first, I could take you to the bleedin’ cleaners before those guards were back in here, upon my oath, and, second, you don’t know what I’ve writ down and who else knows. I trained all you girls at one time or another, and some of the cunning you got, some of the mustard, some of the sense . . . well, you got it from me. Didn’t you? So don’t any of you go thinking you can be artful about this, because when it comes to cunning I am Mister Fox.’
‘Sergeant, sergeant, sergeant,’ said Froc wearily, ‘what is it you want?’
Jackrum completed his circuit of the table and finished in front of it, once again like a man before his judges.