Monstrous Regiment

Do your men a favor and try to tell him that, will you?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir,” said Jackrum. “Here is your road, sir. Where will you be heading now?”
    “To Kneck Valley, Sergeant. This is a good story, Sergeant. Thank you. Allow me to shake you by the hand.”
    “Glad to hear you think that, sir,” said Jackrum, extending his hand. Polly heard the faint clink of coins in their passage from palm to palm. De Worde took the reins.
    “But I must tell you, Sergeant, that we’ll probably send off our stuff by pigeon within the hour,” he said. “We will have to say you have prisoners.”
    “Don’t worry about that, sir,” said Jackrum. “By the time their mates come out here to rescue those gallopers, we’ll be halfway back to the mountains. Our mountains.”
    They parted. Jackrum watched them out of sight and turned to Polly.
    “Him with his airs and graces,” he said. “Did you see that? He insulted me by giving me a tip!” He glanced at his palm. “Hmm, five Morpork dollars? Well, at least he’s a man who knows how to insult you handsomely,” he added, and the coins disappeared into his jacket with remarkable speed.
    “I think he wants to help us, Sarge,” said Polly.
    Jackrum ignored that. “I hate bloody Ankh-Morpork,” he said. “Who’re they to tell us what to do? Who cares what they think?”
    “Do you think we can really join up with deserters, Sarge?”
    “Nope. They deserted once, what’s to stop ’em a second time? They spat on the Duchess when they deserted, they can’t kiss and make up now. You get one kiss, that’s all.”
    “But Lieutenant Blouse—”
    “The rupert should stick to sums. He thinks he’s a soldier. Never walked on a battlefield in his life. All that rubbish he gave your man was death-or-glory stuff. And I’ll tell you, Perks, I’ve seen Death more often than I care to remember, but I’ve never clapped eyes on Glory. I’m all for sending the fools to look for us where we ain’t, though.”
    “He’s not my man, Sarge,” said Polly.
    “Yeah, well, you’re at home with the writin’ and readin’,” grumbled Jackrum. “You can’t trust the people who do that stuff. They mess around with the world, and it turns out everything you know is wrong.”
    They reached the gully again. The squad had come back from their various hiding places, and most were clustered around one of the newspapers.
    For the first time, Polly saw The Picture.
    It was actually quite good, especially of Shufti and Wazzer. She was mostly hidden by the bulk of Jackrum. But you could see the sullen cavalrymen behind them, and their expressions were a picture in themselves.
    “It’s a good one of Tonker,” said Igorina, who didn’t lisp so much when there were no officers to hear.
    “Do you think having a picture like this is an Abomination Unto Nuggan?” said Shufti nervously.
    “Probably,” said Polly absentmindedly. “Most things are.”
    She ran her eye down the text next to the picture. It was full of phrases like “plucky farm boys” and “humiliation of some of Zlobenia’s best troops” and “sting in the tail.” She could see why it had caused trouble.
    She rustled through the other pages. They were crammed with strange stories about places she’d never heard of, and pictures of people she didn’t recognize. But one page was a mass of gray text, under a line of much bigger printing, which read:
    WHY THIS MAD STATE MUST BE STOPPED
    Bewildered, her eye picked up phrases from the sea of letters: “disgraceful invasions of neighboring states,” “deluded worshippers of a mad god,” “a strutting bully,” “outrage after outrage,” “flying in the face of international opinion”…
    “Don’t you lads read that rubbish, you don’t know where it’s been,” said Sergeant Jackrum jovially, arriving behind them. “It’ll all be lies. We are leaving right—Corporal Maladict!”
    Maladict, emerging from the trees, gave a lazy salute. He was still wearing his blanket.
    “What are you doing out of uniform?”
    “I’m in uniform underneath, Sarge. We don’t want to be seen, right? Like this, we become part of the jungle!”
    “It’s a forest, Corporal! And without bloody uniforms, how the hell will we know our friends from our enemies?”
    Maladict lit a cigarette before he replied. “The way I see it, Sarge,” he said, “the enemy is everyone but us.”
    “Just one moment, Sergeant,” said Blouse, who had looked up from a