Monstrous Regiment

strange fancy hadn’t been followed by a plan.
    On the way back to her palliasse she caught sight of Wazzer hanging his little picture of the Duchess on a handy hook in the crumbling wall above his mattress. He looked around furtively, failed to spot Polly in the shadows of the doorway, and bobbed a very quick curtsy to the picture. A curtsy, not a bow.
    Polly frowned. Four. She was barely surprised now. And she had one pair of clean socks left. This was soon going to be a barefoot army.

    Polly could tell time by the fire. You got a feel for how long a fire burned, and the logs on this one were gray with ash over the glow beneath. It was gone eleven, she decided.
    By the sound of it, no one was getting any sleep. She’d got up after an hour or two of lying on the crackling straw mattress, staring at darkness and listening to things move about underneath her; she’d have stayed on it for longer, but something in the straw seemed to want to push her leg out of the way. Besides, she didn’t have any dry blankets. There were blankets in the barracks, but Threeparts had advised against them on account of them carrying, as he put it, “the Itch.”
    The corporal had left a candle alight. Polly had read Paul’s letter again, and took another look at the piece of printed paper rescued from the muddy road. The words were fractured and she wasn’t sure about all of them, but she didn’t like the sound of any of them. “Invas” had a particularly unpleasant ring to it.
    And then there was the third piece of paper. She couldn’t help that. It had been a complete accident. She’d done Blouse’s laundry, and of course you went through the pockets before you washed things, because anyone who’d ever tried to unroll a soggy, bleached sausage that’d once been a banknote never wanted to do it twice. And there had been this folded piece of paper. Admittedly, she needn’t have unfolded it and, having unfolded it, needn’t have read it. But there are some things that you just do.
    It was a letter. Presumably Blouse had shoved it in a pocket and forgot about it when he’d changed his shirt.
    She didn’t need to read it again but, by candlelight, she did.
My Dearest Emmeline,
Fame and Fortune await! After only eight years as a 2 nd Lieutenant, I have now been promoted and am to have a command! Of course this will mean that there will be no officer left in the Adjutant-General’s Blankets, Bedding, and Horse Fodder Department, but I have explained my new filing system to Cpl. Drebb and I believe he is Sound.
You know I cannot go into matters of detail, but I believe this will be a very exciting prospect and I am anxious to be “at the Foe.” I am bold enough to hope that the name of Blouse will go down in military history. In the meantime, I am brushing up my sword drill and it is definitely all “coming back” to me. Of course, the promotion brings with it no less than One Shilling extra “per Diem,” plus Three Pence fodder allowance. To this end I have purchased a “charger” from Mr. “Honest” Jack Slacker, a most entertaining gentleman, although I fear that his description of my steed’s “prowess” may have been prone to some exaggeration. Nevertheless, I am “moving up” at last and if Fate smiles on me, this will hurry forward the day when I can
    And that was it, fortunately. After some thought, Polly went and carefully damped the letter, then dried it quickly over the remains of the fire and slipped it into the pocket of the washed shirt. Blouse might scold her for not removing it before washing, but she doubted it.
    A blanket-counter with a new filing system. An ensign for eight years, in a war where promotion could be rather fast. A man who put quotes around any word or phrase he thought of as even slightly “racy.” Brushing up on his “sword drill.” And so near-sighted he’d bought a horse from Jack Slacker, who went around all the horse fairs’ bargain bins and sold winded old screws that dropped a leg before you’d got home.
    Our leader.
    They were losing the war. Everyone knew that, but nobody would say it. It was as if they felt that if the words weren’t said out loud then it wasn’t really happening. They were losing the war and this squad, untrained and untried, fighting in dead men’s boots, could only help them lose it faster. Half of them were girls! And because of some bloody stupid song, Shufti was wandering off into a war to look for the father of her child, and that