Monstrous Regiment

briefly at Wazzer. “Anyway, I wasn’t goin’ to shame you all in front of a little toad like Strappi, and then there was all that business in Plotz, and then, well, we was gallopin’, as it were, caught up in things with no time to get off. You did well, lads. Very well. Shaped up like good ’uns.”
    “I’m going into the Keep,” said Polly.
    “Oh, don’t worry about the rupert,” said Jackrum. “Probably he’s enjoying a nice bowl of scubbo right now. He went to a school for young gentlemen, so prison will be just like old times.”
    “We’re still going, Sarge. Sorry,” said Polly.
    “Oh, don’t say sorry , Perks, you were doing well up ’til then,” said Jackrum bitterly.
    Shufti stood up. “I’m going, too,” she said. “I think my…fiancé is in there.”
    “I have to go,” said Wazzer. “The Duchess guides my steps.”
    “I’ll go, then,” said Igorina. “I’m probably going to be needed.”
    “I shouldn’t fink I could get by as a washerwoman,” rumbled Jade. “I’ll stay here and watch over Mal. Hah, if he’s still after blood when he wakes up he’s gonna have blunt teeth!”
    They looked at one another in silence, embarrassed but defiant.
    Then there was the sound of someone clapping slowly.
    “Oh, very nice,” said Jackrum. “A band of brothers, eh? Sorry…sisters. Oh dear, oh dear. Look, Blouse was a fool. It was prob’ly all them books. He read all that stuff about it being a noble thing to die for your country, I expect. I was never that keen on readin’, but I know the job is making some other poor devil die for his.”
    He slewed his black tobacco from side to side. “I wanted you to be safe, lads. Down in the press of men, I reckoned I could get you through this, no matter how many friends the prince has sent after you. I look at you, lads, and I think: you poor boys, you don’t know nothin’ about war. What you goin’ to do? Tonker, you are a crack shot, but after one shot, who’s backing you up while you reload? Perks, you know a trick or two, but the blokes in the castle will maybe know a trick or five. You’re a good cook, Shufti, too bad it’s going to be too hot in there. Will the Duchess turn aside arrows, Wazzer?”
    “Yes. She will.”
    “I hope you are right, my lad,” said Jackrum, giving the girl a long slow look. “Pers’nally, I’ve found religion in battle is as much use as a chocolate helmet. You’ll need more than a prayer if Prince Heinrich catches you, I might add.”
    “We’re going to try it, Sarge,” said Polly. “There’s nothing for us in the army.”
    “Will you come with us, Sarge?” said Shufti.
    “No, lad. Me as a washerwoman? I doubt it. Don’t seem to have a skirt anywhere about me, for a start. Er…just one thing, lads. How are you going to get in?”
    “In the morning. When we see the women going in again,” said Polly.
    “Got it all planned, General? And you’ll be dressed as women?”
    “Er…we are women, Sarge,” said Polly.
    “Yes, lad. Technical detail. But you kitted out the rupert with all your little knickknacks, didn’t you? What’re you going to do, tell the guards you opened the wrong cupboard in the dark?”
    Another embarrassed silence descended.
    Jackrum sighed.
    “This ain’t proper war,” he said. “Still, I said I’d look after you. You are my little lads, I said.” His eyes gleamed. “And you still are, even if the world’s turned upside down. I’ll just have to hope, Miss Perks, that you picked up a few tricks from ol’ Sarge, although I reckon you can think of a few of your own. And now I’d better get you kitted up, right?”
    “Perhaps we could sneak in and steal something from the villages where the servants come from?” said Tonker.
    “From a bunch of poor women?” said Polly, her heart sinking. “Anyway, there’d be soldiers everywhere.”
    “Well, how do we get women’s clothes on a battlefield?” said Lofty.
    Jackrum laughed, stood up, stuck his thumbs in his belt, and grinned.
    “I told you, lads, you don’t know nothin’ about war!” he said.

    …and one of the things they didn’t know was that it had edges.
    Polly wasn’t certain what she’d expected. Men and horses, obviously. In her mind’s eye, they were engaged in mortal combat, but obviously you couldn’t go on doing that all day. So there would be tents. And that was about as far as the mind’s eye had seen.
    It hadn’t seen that an army on campaign is a sort of large,