Monstrous Regiment

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 she 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 clothéd all in leather, I expect? No, since it’s about us, it’s 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 hom—where I worked. 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.
    “Then it’s not Ozz, either,” said Polly. “Fill yer hat with bread, fill yer boots with soup! And steal the cheese, eh, Sarge?”
    “That’s right. We’ve always been a very practical regiment,” said Jackrum. “An army marches on its stomach, lads. On mine, o’course, it could hold a parade!”
    “It was her own fault, she should have been able to tie up her own garters,” said Lofty.
    “Yeah. Probably wanted her cheese stolen,” said Tonker.
    “Wise words,” said Jackrum. “Off you go, then…cheesemongers!”
    The mist was still thick as they made their way down through the woods to the path by the river.
    Polly’s skirt kept catching in brambles. It must have done so before she’d joined up, but she’d never noticed it so much. Now it was seriously hindering her.
    She reached up and absentmindedly adjusted the socks, which she’d separated to use as padding elsewhere. She was too skinny, that was the trouble. The ringlets would have been useful there. They would have said “girl.” In their absence, she had to rely on a scarf and a socks change.
    “All right,” she whispered as the ground leveled out. “Remember, no swearing. Giggle, don’t snigger. No belching. No weapons, either. They can’t be that stupid in there. Anyone brought a weapon?”
    There was a shaking of heads.
    “Did you bring a weapon, Tonk—Magda?”
    “No, Polly.”
    “No item of any sort with a certain weaponlike quality?” Polly insisted.
    “No, Polly,” said Tonker demurely.
    “Anything, perhaps, with an edge?”
    “Oh, you mean this?”
    “Yes, Magda.”
    “Well, a woman can carry a knife, can’t she?”
    “It’s a saber , Magda. You’re trying to hide it, but it’s a saber.”
    “But I’m only using it like a knife, Polly.”
    “It’s three feet long, Magda.”
    “Size isn’t important, Polly.”
    “No one believes that. Leave it behind a tree, please. That is an order.”
    “Oh, all right!”
    After a while, Shufti, who had appeared to be thinking deeply, said: “I can’t understand why she didn’t just tie up her own garter …”
    “Shuft, what the hell—” Tonker began.
    “—heck,” Polly corrected her, “and you’re talking to Betty, remember.”
    “What the heck are you talking about, Betty ?” said Tonker, rolling her eyes.
    “Well, the song, of course. And you don’t have to lie down to tie a garter in any case. It’d be more difficult,” said Shufti. “It’s all a bit silly.”
    No one said anything for a while. It was, perhaps, easy to see why Shufti was on her quest.
    “You’re right,” said Polly eventually. “It’s a silly song.”
    “A very silly song,” Tonker agreed.
    They all agreed. It was a silly song.
    They stepped out onto the river path. Ahead of them, a small group of women were hurrying around the bend in the cliff.
    Automatically, the squad looked up. The Keep grew out of the sheer cliff; it was hard to see where the unhewn rock ended and the ancient masonry began. They could see no