‘So you’ve got to go there, sarge.’
‘Got to? Who says? I’ve served the old girl the whole of my life, and she’s got no call on me now. I’m my own man, always have been.’
‘Are you, sarge?’ said Polly.
‘Are you crying, Perks?’
‘Well . . . it’s a bit sad, sarge.’
‘Oh, I dare say I sobbed a bit too, once in a while,’ said Jackrum, still tucking the tobacco into the new pouch. ‘But when all’s said and done, I’ve had a good life. Saw the cavalry break at the Battle of Slomp. I was part of the Thin Red Line that turned aside the Heavy Brigade at Sheep’s Drift, I saved the Imperial flag from four real bastards at Raladan, and I’ve been to a lot of foreign countries and met some very interesting people, who I mostly subsequently killed before they could do me over good and proper. Lost a lover, still got a son . . . there’s many a woman who’s faced worse, believe me.’
‘And . . . you spotted other girls . . .’
‘Hah! Became a kind of hobby, really. Most of ‘em were frightened little things, running away from god knows what. They got found out soon enough. And there were plenty like Shufti, chasin’ their lad. But there were a few who had what I call the twinkle. A bit of fire, maybe. They just needed pointing in the right direction. I gave them a leg up, you might say. A sergeant’s a powerful man, sometimes. A word here, a nod there, sometimes even doctorin’ some paperwork, a whisper in the dark—’
‘—a pair of socks,’ said Polly.
‘Yeah, that sort of thing,’ said Jackrum, grinning. ‘Always a big concern to them, the whole latrine business. Least of your worries, I used to say. In peace no one cares, in battle everyone takes a piss the same way, and damn quickly, too. Oh, I helped ‘em. I was their whatsit, their eminence grease, and grease it was, too, slidin’ them to the top. Jackrum’s Little Lads, I called ‘em.’
‘And they never suspected?’
‘What, suspect Jolly Jack Jackrum, so full of rum and vinegar?’ said Jackrum, the old evil grin coming back. ‘Jack Jackrum, who could stop a bar fight by belchin’? No, sir! I dare say some of ‘em suspected something, maybe, I dare say they worked out that there was something going on somewhere, but I was just the big fat sergeant who knew everyone and everything and drank everything, too.’
Polly dabbed at her eyes. ‘What are you going to do now, then, if you don’t go to Scritz?’
‘Oh, I’ve got a bit put by,’ said Jackrum. ‘More than a bit, in point of actual fact. Pillage, plunder, loot. . . it all adds up, what ever you call it. I didn’t piss it all up against a wall like the other lads, right? I expect I can remember most of the bleedin’ places I buried it. Always thought I might open an inn, or maybe a knocking shop . . . oh, a proper high class place, you don’t have to look at me like that, nothin’ like that stinking tent. No, I’m talkin’ about one with a chef and chandeliers and a lot of red velvet, very exclusive. I’d get some nobby lady to front it and I’d be the bouncer and run the bar. Here’s a tip, lad, for your future career, and it’s one some of the other Little Lads learned for ‘emselves: sometimes it’ll help if you visits one of them naughty places, otherwise the men’ll wonder about you. I always used to take a book to read and advise the young lady to get some sleep, ‘cos they does a tough job.’
Polly let that pass, but said: ‘You don’t want to go back and see your grandchildren?’
‘Wouldn’t wish meself on him, lad,’ said Jackrum firmly. ‘Wouldn’t dare. My boy’s a well-respected man in the town! What’ve I got to offer? He’ll not want some fat ol’ biddy banging on his back door and gobbing baccy juice all over the place and telling him she’s his mother!’
Polly looked at the fire for a moment, and felt the idea creep into her mind. ‘What about a distinguished sergeant major, shiny with braid, loaded with medals, arriving at the front door in a grand coach and telling him he’s his father?’ she said.
Jackrum stared.
‘Tides of war, and all that,’ Polly went on, mind suddenly racing. ‘Young love. Duty calls. Families scattered. Hopeless searching. Decades pass. Fond memories. Then . . . oh, an overheard conversation in a bar, yeah, that’d work. Hope springs. A new search. Greasing palms. The recollections of old women. At last, an address—’
‘What’re you saying, Perks?’
‘You’re a liar, sarge,’ said Polly. ‘Best I’ve ever heard. One last lie pays for all! Why not? You could show him the locket. You could tell him about the girl you left behind you . . .’
Jackrum looked away, but said: ‘You’re a shining bastard of a thinker, Perks. And where would I get a grand coach, anyway?’
‘Oh, sarge! Today? There are . . . men in high places who’ll give you anything you ask for, right now. You know that. Especially if it means they’d see the back of you. You never put the bite on them for anything much. If I was you, sarge, I’d cash in a few favours while you can. That’s the Ins-and-Outs, sarge. Take the cheese while it’s there, ‘cos kissin’ don’t last.’
Jackrum took a deep, long breath. ‘I’ll think about it, Perks. Now you push off, all right?’
Polly stood up. ‘Think hard, sarge, eh? Like you said, anyone who’s got anyone left is ahead of the game right now. Four grandchildren? I’d be a proud kid if I had a grandad who could spit tobacco juice far enough to hit a fly on the opposite wall.’
‘I’m warning you, Perks.’
‘It was just a thought, sarge.’
‘Yeah . . . right,’ Jackrum growled.
‘Thanks for getting us through it, sarge.’
Jackrum didn’t turn round.
‘I’ll be going, then, sarge.’
‘Perks!’ said Jackrum, as she reached the door. Polly stepped back into the room.
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘I . . . expected better of ‘em, really. I thought they’d be better at it than men. Trouble was, they were better than men at being like men. They do say the army can make a man of you, eh? So . . . whatever it is you are going to do next, do it as you. Good or bad, do it as you. Too many lies and there’s no truth to go back to.’
‘Will do, sarge.’
‘That’s an order, Perks. Oh . . . and Perks?’
‘Yes, sarge?’
‘Thanks, Perks.’
Polly paused when she got to the door. Jackrum had turned her chair to the fire, and had settled back. Around him, the kitchen worked.
Six months passed. The world wasn’t perfect, but it was still turning.
Polly had kept the newspaper articles. They weren’t accurate, not in the detail, because the writer told . . . stories, not what was actually happening. They were like paintings, when you had been there and had seen the real thing. But it was true about the march on the castle, with Wazzer on a white horse in front, carrying the flag. And it was true about people coming out of their houses and joining the march, so that what arrived at the gates was not an army but a sort of disciplined mob, shouting and cheering. And it was true that the guards had taken one look at it and had seriously reconsidered their future, and that the gates had swung open even before the horse had clattered on to the drawbridge. There was no fighting, no fighting at all. The shoe had dropped. The country had breathed out.
Polly didn’t think it was true that the painting of the Duchess, alone on its easel in the big, empty throne room, had smiled when Wazzer walked towards it. Polly had been there and didn’t see it happen, but lots of people swore it had, and you might end up wondering what the truth really was, or whether there were lots of different kinds of truth.
Anyway, it had worked. And then . . .
. . . they went home. A lot of soldiers did, under the fragile truce. The first snows were already falling and, if people had wanted a war, then the winter had given them one. It came with lances of ice and arrows of hunger, it filled the passes with snow, it made the world as distant as the moon . . .
That was when the old dwarf mines had opened up, and pony after pony emerged. It had always been said there were dwarf tunnels everywhere, and not just tunnels; secret canals under the mountains, docks, flights of locks that could lift a barge a mile high in busy darkness, far below the gales on the mountain tops.