Monstrous Regiment

portable city. It has only one employer, and it manufactures dead people, but, like all cities, it attracts…citizens.
    What was unnerving was the sound of babies crying, off in the rows of tents. She hadn’t expected that. Or the mud. Or the crowds. Everywhere there were fires, and the smell of cooking. This was a siege, after all. People had settled in.
    Getting down onto the plain in the dark had been easy. There was only Polly and Shufti trailing after the sergeant, who’d said that more would be too many and in any case would attract too much attention.
    There were patrols, but their edge had been dulled by sheer repetitiveness. Besides, the allies weren’t expecting anyone to make much effort to get into the valley, at least in small groups. And men in the dark make noise, far more noise than a woman. They’d located a Borogravian sentry in the gloom by the noise of him trying to suck a morsel of dinner out of his teeth.
    But another one had located them when they were a stone’s throw from the tents. He was young, so he was still keen.
    “Halt! Who goes there? Friend or foe!”
    The light from a cooking fire glinted off a crossbow.
    “See?” whispered Jackrum. “This is where your uniform is your friend. Aren’t you glad you kept it?”
    He swaggered forwards, and spat tobacco between the young sentry’s boots.
    “My name’s Jackrum,” he said. “That’s Sergeant Jackrum. As for the other bit… you choose.”
    “Sergeant Jackrum?” said the boy, his mouth staying open.
    “Yes, lad.”
    “What, the one who killed sixteen men at the Battle of Zop?”
    “There was only ten of ’em, but good lad for knowin’ it.”
    “The Jackrum who carried General Froc through fourteen miles of enemy territory?”
    “That’s right.”
    Polly saw teeth in the gloom as the sentry grinned.
    “My dad told me he fought with you at Blunderberg!”
    “Ah, that was a hot battle, that was!” said Jackrum.
    “No, he meant in the pub afterwards! He pinched your drink and you smacked him in the gob and he kicked you in the nadgers and you hit him in the guts and he blacked your eye and then you hit him with a table and when he came round his mates stood him beer for the evening for managing to lay nearly three punches on Sergeant Jackrum. He tells the story every year, when it’s the anniversary and he’s pis—reminiscing.”
    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!” said the sentry. “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 honor. “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 anything 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. Armorers 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