Monstrous Regiment

Abominable.”
    “I would like to eat chocolates in a great big room where the world is a different place,” mumbled Lofty sadly.
    “I saw a Punch and Judy show in the town once,” said Shufti. “Then they dragged the man away and it became an Abomination.”
    “I remember that,” said Polly. Crocodiles should not be seen to eat figures of authority, apparently, although until the puppet show no one in the town knew what a crocodile was. The bit where the clown had beaten his wife had also contravened Abomination, because he’d used a stick thicker than the regulation one inch.
    “The lieutenant won’t last a minute, you know,” she said.
    “Yes, but he won’t listen, will he,” said Igorina. “I’ll do the best with my scissorth and needle to make a woman of him but—”
    “Igorina, when it’s you talking about this sort of thing, some very strange pictures turn up in my head,” said Maladict.
    “Sorry,” said Igorina.
    “Can you pray for him, Wazzer?” said Polly. “I think we’re going to need a miracle here.”
    Wazzer obediently closed her eyes and folded her hands for a moment and then said shyly: “I’m afraid She says it will take more than a turkey.”
    “Wazz?” said Polly, “do you really—” Then she stopped, with the bright little face watching her.
    “Yes, I do,” said Wazzer. “I really talk to the Duchess.”
    “Yeah, well, I used to, too,” snapped Tonker. “I used to beg her, once upon a time. That stupid face just stared and did nothing. She never stopped anything. All that stuff, all that stupid—” The girl stopped, too many words blocking her brain. “Anyway, why should she talk to you? ”
    “Because I listen,” said Wazzer quietly.
    “And what does she say?”
    “Sometimes she just cries.”
    “She cries?”
    “Because there are so many things that people want, and she can’t give them anything.”
    Wazzer gave them all one of her smiles that lit up the room.
    “But everything will be fine when I am in the right place,” she said.
    “Well, that’s all right, then—” Polly began, in that cloud of deep embarrassment that Wazzer called up within her.
    “Yeah, right,” said Tonker. “But I’m not praying to anyone, okay? Ever again. I don’t like this, Wazz. You’re a decent kid, but I don’t like the way you smile—” She stopped. “Oh, no…”
    Polly stared at Wazzer. Her face was thin and all angles, and the Duchess in the painting had looked, well, like an overfed turbot, but now the smile, the actual smile…
    “I’m not putting up with that!” Tonker snarled. “You stop that right now! I mean it! You’re giving me the creeps! Ozz, you stop her—him smiling like that!”
    “Just calm down, all of you—” Polly began.
    “Bleedin’ well shut up!” said Jackrum. “A man can’t hear himself chew. Look, you’re all edgy. That happens. And Wazzer here’s just got a bit of religion before the fight. That happens, too. And what you do is, you save it all up for the enemy. Quieten down. That is what we in the milit’ry call a order, okay?”
    “Perks?” It was Blouse.
    “You’d better hurry,” said Maladict. “His corset probably wants lacing…”

    In fact, Blouse was sitting on what remained of a chair.
    “Ah, Perks. A shave, please,” he said.
    “Oh, I thought your hand was better, sir…”
    “Er…yes.” Blouse looked awkward. “The problem, Perks, is…I have never actually shaved myself at all, to be honest. I had a man to do it for me at school, and then, of course, in the army I shared a batman with Blitherskite and, er, those attempts I made on my own behalf have been somewhat bloody. I never really thought about it until I got to Plotz and, er…suddenly it was embarrassing…”
    “Sorry about that, sir,” said Polly. It was a strange old world.
    “Later on, perhaps you could give me a few tips,” Blouse went on. “You keep yourself beautifully shaven, I can’t help noticing. General Froc would be pleased. He’s very anti-whiskers, they say.”
    “If you like, sir,” said Polly. There was no getting out of it. She made a show of sharpening the razor. Perhaps she could manage it with only a few small cuts…
    “Do you think I should have a reddened nose?” said Blouse.
    “Probably, sir,” said Polly. Sarge knows about me, I’m sure, she thought. I know he does. Why’s he keeping quiet?
    “Probably, Perks?”
    “What? Oh. No…why a red nose, sir?” said Polly, applying the