After a few moments of embarrassed silence Polly said: “What’s a political?”
“Like a spy, only on your own side,” said Maladict.
“That’s right,” said Scallot. “There’s one in every battalion these days, snitching on their mates. Get promotion that way, see? Don’t want dissent in the ranks, eh? Don’t want loose talk about losing battles, right? Which is a load of bloody cludgies, ’cos the infantry grumbles all the time. Moaning is part of bein’ a soldier.” He sighed. “Anyway, there’s a bunkhouse out the back. I beats the pallyarses regular so there’s probably not too many fleas.” Once again he looked at blank faces. “That’s straw mattresses to you. Go on, help yourselves. Take what you like. I’m closing up after you’ve gone, anyway. We must be winning now you rattling lads are joining, right?”
The clouds had broken when Polly stepped out into the night, and a half-moon filled the world with cold silver and black. The inn opposite was another rubbishy alehouse for selling bad beer to soldiers. It stank of ancient slops, even before she opened the door. The sign was flaked and unrecognizable, but she could read the name: The World Turned Upside Down. She pushed open the door. The smell got worse. There were no customers and no sign of Strappi or Jackrum, but Polly did see a servant methodically spreading the inn’s dirt evenly across the floor with a mop.
“Excuse m—” she began, and then remembered the socks, raised her voice and tried to sound angry. “Hey, where’s the lieutenant?”
The servant looked at her and gestured up the stairs with a thumb. There was only one candle alight up there, and she knocked on the nearest door.
“Enter.”
She entered. Lieutenant Blouse was standing in the middle of the floor in his breeches and shirtsleeves, holding a sabre. Polly was no expert in these matters, but she thought she recognized the stylish, flamboyant pose as the one beginners tend to use just before they’re stabbed through the heart by a more experienced fighter.
“Ah, Perks, isn’t it?” he said, lowering the blade. “Just, er, limbering up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s some laundry in the bag over there. I expect someone in the inn will do it. What’s for supper?”
“I’ll check, sir.”
“What are the men having?”
“Scubbo, sir,” said Polly. “Possibly with hor—”
“Then bring me some, will you? We are at war, after all, and I must show an example to my men,” said Blouse, sheathing the sword at the third attempt. “That would be good for morale.”
Polly glanced at the table. A book lay open on top of a pile of others. It looked like a manual of swordsmanship, and the page it was open at was page five. Beside it was a thick-lensed pair of spectacles.
“Are you a reading man, Perks?” said Blouse, closing the book.
Polly hesitated. But, then, what did Ozzer care? “A bit, sir,” she admitted.
“I suspect I shall have to leave most of these behind,” he said. “Do take one if you want it.” He waved a hand at the books. Polly read the titles. The Craft of War. Principles of Engagement. Battle Studies. Tactical Defence.
“All a bit heavy for me, sir,” she said. “Thanks all the same.”
“Tell me, Perks,” said Blouse, “are the recruits in, er, good spirits?”
He gave her a look of apparently genuine concern. He really did have no chin, she noticed. His face just eased its way into his neck without much to disturb it on the way, but his Adam’s apple, now, that was a champion. It went up and down his neck like a ball on a spring.
Polly had been soldiering for only a couple of days, but already an instinct had developed. In summary, it was this: lie to officers. “Yes, sir,” she said.
“Getting everything they need?”
The aforesaid instinct weighed the chances of their getting anything more than they’d got already as a result of a complaint, and Polly said, “Yes, sir.”
“Of course, it is not up to us to question our orders,” said Blouse.
“Wasn’t doing so, sir,” said Polly, momentarily perplexed.
“Even though at times we might feel—” the lieutenant began, and started again. “Obviously warfare is a very volatile thing, and the tide of battle can change in a moment.”
“Yessir,” said Polly, still staring. The man had a small spot where his spectacles had rubbed on his nose.
The lieutenant seemed to have something on his mind, too. “Why did you join up, Perks?” he said, groping on the table and finding his spectacles at the third attempt. He had woollen gloves on, with the fingers cut out.
“Patriotic duty, sir!” said Polly promptly.
“You lied about your age?”
“Nosir!”
“Just patriotic duty, Perks?”
There were lies, and then there were lies. Polly shifted awkwardly. “Would quite like to find out what’s happened to my brother Paul, sir,” she said.
“Ah, yes.” Lieutenant Blouse’s face, not a picture of happiness to begin with, suddenly bore a hunted look.
“Paul Perks, sir,” Polly prompted.
“I’m, er, not really in a position to know, Perks,” said Blouse. “I was working as a… I was, er, in charge of, er, I was engaged in special work back at headquarters, er… obviously I don’t know all the soldiers, Perks. Older brother, w—is he?”
“Yessir. Joined the Ins-and-Outs last year, sir.”
“And, er, have you any younger brothers?” said the lieutenant.
“No, sir.”
“Ah, well. That’s something to be thankful for, at any rate,” said Blouse. It was a strange thing to say. Polly’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
“Sir?” she said.
And then she felt an unpleasant sensation of movement. Something was slipping slowly down the inside of her thigh.
“Anything the matter, Perks?” said the lieutenant, catching her expression.
“Nosir! Just a… a bit of cramp, sir! All the marching, sir!” She clamped both hands around one knee and edged backwards towards the door. “I’ll just go and… go and see to your supper, sir!”
“Yes, yes,” said Blouse, staring at her leg. “Yes… please…”
Polly paused outside the door to pull her socks up, retucked the end of one under her belt as an anchor, and hurried down to the inn’s kitchens. A look told her all she wanted to know. Food hygiene here consisted of making a half-hearted effort not to gob in the stew.
“I want onions, salt, pepper—” she began.
The maid who was stirring the soot-black pot on the soot-black stove glanced up, realized she had been addressed by a man, and hastily pushed her damp hair out of her eyes.
“It’s stoo, sir,” she announced.
“I don’t want any. I just want the stuff,” said Polly. “For the officer,” she added.
The kitchen maid pointed a soot-blackened thumb to a nearby door and gave Polly what she probably thought was a saucy grin.
“I’m sure you can have anything that takes your fancy, sir,” she said.
Polly glanced at the two shelves that had been dignified by the name of pantry, and grabbed a couple of large onions, one in each hand.
“May I?” she said.
“Oh, sir!” giggled the maid. “I do hope you’re not one of them coarse soldiers who’d take advantage of a helpless maiden, sir!”
“No, er… no. I’m not one of them,” said Polly.
“Oh.” This didn’t seem to be the right answer. The maid put her head on one side. “Have you had much to do with young women, sir?” she asked.
“Er… yes. Quite a lot,” said Polly. “Er… lots, really.”
“Really?” The maid drew closer. She smelled mostly of sweat, tinged with soot. Polly raised the onions as a kind of barrier.
“I’m sure there’s things you’d like to learn,” the maid purred.
“I’m sure there’s something you wouldn’t!” said Polly, and turned and ran.
As she made i
t out into the cold night air, a plaintive voice behind her called out, “I’m off at eight o’clock!”
Ten minutes later, Corporal Scallot was impressed. Polly got the feeling this did not happen often. Shufti had wedged an old breastplate beside the fire, had hammered some slabs of horse-meat until they were tender, dipped them in some flour, and was frying them. The sliced onions sizzled next to them.
“I always just boil ’em,” said Scallot, watching him with interest.
“You just lose all the flavour if you do that,” said Shufti.
“Hey, lad, the stuff I’ve ate, you wouldn’t want to taste it!”
“Saute stuff first, especially the onions,” Shufti went on. “Improves the flavour. Anyway, when you boil you ought to boil slow. That’s what me mam always says. Roast fast, boil slow, okay? This isn’t bad meat, for horse. Shame to boil it.”
“Amazin’,” said Scallot. “We could’ve done with you in Ibblestarn. The sarge was a good man but a bit, you know, tough in the leg?”
“A marinade would probably have helped,” said Shufti absently, flipping over a slice of meat with a broken sword. He turned to Polly. “Was there any more stuff in the larder, Ozz? I can make up some stock for tomorrow if we can—”
“I’m not going in that kitchen again!” said Polly.
“Ah, that’d be Roundheels Molly?” said Corporal Scallot, looking up and grinning. “She’s sent many a lad on his way rejoicing.” He dipped a ladle in the boiling scubbo pot next to the pan. Disintegrated grey meat seethed in a few inches of water.
“That’ll do for the rupert,” he said, and picked up a stained bowl.
“Well, he did say he wanted to eat what the men eat,” said Polly.
“Oh, that kind of officer,” said Scallot uncharitably. “Yeah, some young ones try that stuff, if’n they’ve been readin’ the wrong books. Some of ’em tries to be friends, the bastards.” He spat expertly between the two pans. “Wait ’til he tries what the men eat.”
“But if we’re having steak and onions—”
“No thanks to the likes o’ him,” said the corporal, ladling the slurry into the bowl. “The Zlobenian troops get one pound of beef and a pound of flour a day minimum, plus fat pork or butter and half a pound of pease. A pint o’ molasses sometimes, too. We get stale horse-bread and what we scrounge. He’ll have scubbo and like it.”
“No fresh vegetables, no fruit,” said Shufti. “That’s a very binding diet, corp.”
“Yeah, well, once battle commences I reckon you’ll find constipation’s the last thing on your mind,” said Scallot. He reached up, pushed some rags aside, and pulled down a dusty bottle from a shelf.
“Rupert’s not having none o’ this, neither,” he said. “Got it off’f the baggage of the last officer that went through, but I’ll share it with you, ’cos you’s good lads.” He casually knocked the top of the bottle off against the edge of the chimney. “’s only sherry, but it’ll make you drunk.”
“Thanks, corp,” said Shufti, and took the bottle. He sloshed a lot over the sizzling meat.
“Hey, that’s good drink you’re wastin’!” said Scallot, making a grab for it.
“No, it’ll spice up the meat a fair treat,” said Shufti, trying to hang on to the bottle. “It’ll—sugar!”
Half the liquid had gone on the fire as the two hands fought for it, but that wasn’t what had felt like a small steel rod shooting through Polly’s head. She looked round at the rest of the squad, who didn’t appear to have—
Maladict winked at her and made a tiny gesture with his head towards the other end of the room, and strolled in that direction. Polly followed.
Maladict always found something to lounge against. He relaxed in the shadows, looked up at the rafters, and said: “Now, I say a man who knows how to cook is no less of a man for that. But a man who says ‘sugar’ when he swears? Have you ever heard a man say that? You haven’t. I can tell.”
So it was you who gave me the socks, thought Polly. You know about me, I can tell you do, but do you know about Lofty? And maybe Shufti was very politely brought up… but one look at Maladict’s knowing smile made her decide not to try that road. Besides, the moment you looked at Shufti with the idea that maybe he was a girl, you saw that he was. No man would say “Sugar!” Three girls now…
“And I’m pretty sure about Lofty, too,” said Maladict.
“What’re you going to do about… them?” she said.
“Do? Why should I do anything about anyone?” said Maladict. “I’m a vampire officially pretending not to be one, right? I’m the last person who’ll say anyone has to play the hand they were dealt. So good luck to… him, say I. But you might like to take him aside later on and have a word with him. You know… man to man.”
Polly nodded. Was there a knowingness to that comment? “I’d better go and take the lieutenant his scubbo,” she said. “And… blast it, I forgot about his laundry.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that, old chap,” said Maladict, and flashed a little smile. “The way things are going around here, Igor’s probably a washerwoman in disguise.”
Polly did the laundry, in the end. She wasn’t sure that she’d be able to dodge Molly a second time, and there wasn’t that much of it. Afterwards she hung it in front of the fire, which was roaring.
The horse had been surprisingly good, but not as surprising as Blouse’s reaction to the scubbo. He had sat there in his evening dress uniform—wearing special clothes just to sit down and eat all by yourself was a new one on Polly—and had yummed it up and sent her back with the bowl for more. The meat had been boiled white and there was scum on the top. The squad wondered what kind of life an officer could have led that inclined him to like scubbo.
“Dun’t know much about him,” said Scallot, upon questioning. “He’s been here two weeks, frettin’ to get to the war. Brought a whole cartload of books with him, I heard. Looks like a typical rupert to me. They were all behind the door when the chins were handed out. A sergeant who went through said he’s not really a soldier at all, just some wonk from headquarters that’s good at sums.”
“Oh, great,” said Maladict, who was brewing his coffee by the fire. The little engine gurgled and hissed.
“I don’t think he can see very well without his glasses,” said Polly. “But he’s very, er, polite.”
“Not been a rupert for long, then,” said Scallot. “They’re more ‘Hey there! You! Damn your eyes, fwah fwah fwah!’ I seen your sergeant before, though, old Jackrum. Been everywhere, he has. Everyone knows old Jackrum. He was with us in the snow up at Ibblestarn.”
“How many people did he eat?” said Maladict, to general laughter. The dinner had been good, and there had still been enough sherry for a glass each.
“Let’s just say I heard he didn’t come down much thinner than when he went up,” said Scallot.
“And Corporal Strappi?” said Polly.
“Never seen him before, either,” said Scallot. “Cross-grained little bugger. Political, I’d say. Why’s he gone and left you here? Got a nice cushy bed in the inn, has he?”
“I hope he’s not g-going to be our sergeant,” said Wazzer.
“Him? Why?” said Scallot.
Polly volunteered the events of earlier in the evening. To her surprise, Scallot laughed.
“They’re trying to get rid of the old bugger again, are they?” he said. “That’s a laugh! Bless you, it’ll take more’n a bunch of gawains and rodneys to lever Jackrum out of his own army. Why, he’s been court-martialled twice. He got off both times. And d’you know he once saved General Froc’s life? He’s been everywhere, got the goods on everyone, knows more strings than me and I know a good few, mark my words. If he wants to march with you tomorrow he will, and no skinny little rupert’ll get in his way.”
“So what was a man like that doing as a recruiting officer?” said Maladict sharply.
“’cos he got his leg cut open in Zlobenia and bit the sawbones who tried to look at
it when the wound went bad, cleverdick,” retorted Scallot. “Cleaned it out himself with maggots and honey, then drank a pint of brandy and sewed himself up and lay on his bed with a fever for a week. But the general got him, I heard, came and visited him while he was too weak to protest and told him he was going on the drumming for a year and no argument. Not even Froc hisself would hand him his papers, not after Jackrum’d carried him on his back for fourteen miles through enemy lines—”
The door swung open and Sergeant Jackrum walked in, tucking his hands into his belt.
“Don’t bother to salute, lads,” he said, as they turned guiltily. “Evening, Threeparts. Nice to see nearly all of you again, you artful ol’ god-dodger. Where’s Corporal Strappi?”
“Haven’t seen him all evening, sarge,” said Maladict.
“Didn’t he come in here with you?”
“No, sarge. We thought he was with you.”
Not a muscle moved on Jackrum’s face. “I see,” he said. “Well, you heard the lieutenant. The boat leaves at midnight. We should be well down the Kneck by Wednesday’s dawn. Get a few hours’ sleep if you can. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day, if you’re lucky.”
And with that, he turned and went out again. Wind howled outside, and was cut off when the door shut. We’ll be well down the Kneck, Polly noted. Well done, Threeparts.
“Missing a corporal?” said Scallot. “Now there’s a thing. Usually it’s a recruit that goes ay-wole. Well, you heard the sergeant, boys. Time to wash up and turn in.”
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