Monstrous Regiment

She already had good muscles for a girl, because ru

A woman could be beaten for that sort of thing. Men dressed like men and women like women; doing it the other way round was “a blasphemous Abomination Unto Nuggan”, according to Father Jupe.

And that was probably the secret of her success so far, she thought, as she trudged through a puddle. People didn’t look for a woman in trousers. To the casual observer, men’s clothes and short hair and a bit of swagger were what it took to be a man. Oh, and a second pair of socks.

That had been gnawing at her, too. Someone knew about her, just as she knew about Lofty. And he hadn’t given her away. She’d suspected it was Eyebrow, but doubted it; he’d have told the sergeant about her, he was that sort. Right now she was guessing it was Maladict, but perhaps that was just because he seemed so knowing all the time.

Carbor—no, he’d been out cold, and in any case… no, not the troll. And Igor lisped. Tonker? After all, he’d know about Lofty so maybe… No, because why would he want to help Polly? No, there was nothing but danger in owning up to Lofty. The best she could do was try to see to it that the girl didn’t give both of them away.

She could hear Tonker whispering to his girl. “… had just died so he cut off one of his legs and an arm and sewed ’em on men who needed ’em, just like I’d darn a tear! You should’ve seen it! You couldn’t see his fingers move! And he has all these ointments that just…” Tonker’s voice died away. Strappi was haranguing Wazzer again.

“Dat Strappi really gets on my crags,” muttered Carborundum. “You want I should pull the head off f him? I c’d make it look like a accident.”

“Better not,” said Polly, but she did entertain the thought for a moment.

They’d reached a junction, where the road down from the mountains joined what passed for a main highway. It was crowded. There were carts and wheelbarrows, people driving herds of cows, grandmothers carrying all the household possessions on their backs, a general excitement of pigs and children… and it was all heading one way.

It was the opposite way to the way the squad was going. The people and animals flowed around it like a stream around an inconvenient rock. The recruits bunched up. It was that or be separated by cows.

Sergeant Jackrum stood up in the cart. “Private Carborundum!”

“Yes, sergeant?” rumbled the troll.

“To the front!”

That helped. The stream still flowed, but at least the crowds parted some distance further ahead and gave the squad a wide berth. No one wants to barge up against even a slow-moving troll.

But faces stared as the people hurried by. An old lady darted out for a moment, pressed a loaf of stale bread into Tonker’s hands, and said, “You poor boys!” before being swept away in the throng.

“What’s this all about, sarge?” said Maladict. “These look like refugees!”

“Talk like that spreads Alarm and Despondency!” shouted Corporal Strappi.

“Oh, you mean they’re just people getting away early for the holidays to avoid the rush?” said Maladict. “Sorry, I got confused. It must be that woman carrying a whole haystack we just passed.”

“D’you know what can happen to you for cheeking a superior officer?” screamed Strappi.

“No! Tell me, is it worse than whatever it is these people are ru

“You signed up, Mr Bloodsucker! You obey orders!”

“Right! But I don’t remember anyone ordering me not to think!”

“Enough of that!” snapped Jackrum. “Less shouting down there! Move on! Carborundum, you give people a push if they don’t make way, y’hear?”

They moved on. After a while the press of people abated a little, so that what had been a torrent became a trickle. Occasionally there would be a family group, or just one hurrying woman, burdened with bags. One old man was struggling with a wheelbarrow full of turnips. They’re even taking the crops out of the fields, Polly noted. And everyone moved at a kind of half-run, as if things would be a little better when they’d caught up with the mass of people ahead. Or merely passed the squad, perhaps.

They made way for an old woman bent double under the weight of a black and white pig. And then there was just the road, rutted and muddy. An afternoon mist was rising from the fields on either side, quiet and clammy. After the noise of the refugees, the silence of the low countryside was suddenly oppressive. The only sound was the trudge and splash of the recruits’ boots.

“Permission to speak, sarge?” said Polly.

“Yes, private?” said Jackrum.

“How far is it to Plotz?”

“You don’t have to tell ’em, sarge!” said Strappi.

“About five miles,” said Sergeant Jackrum. “You’ll get your uniforms and weapons at the depot there.”

“That’s a milit’ry secret, sarge,” Strappi whined.

“We could shut our eyes so’s we don’t see what we’re wearing, how about that?” said Maladict.

“Stop that, Private Maladict,” said Jackrum. “Just keep moving, and guard that tongue.”

They plodded on. The road grew muddier. A breeze sprang up, but instead of carrying the mist away it merely streamed it across the damp fields in twisty, clammy, unpleasant shapes. The sun became an orange ball.

Polly saw something large and white flutter across the field, blown by the wind. At first she thought it was a migratory lesser egret that had left things a little late, but it was clearly being blown by the wind.

It flopped down once or twice and then, as a gust caught it, blew across the road and wrapped itself across Corporal Strappi’s face.

He screamed.

Lofty grabbed at the fluttering thing, which was damp. It tore in his—her–hands, and most of it dropped away from the struggling corporal.

“It’s just a bit of paper,” she said.

Strappi flailed at it. “I knew that,” he said. “I never asked you!”

Polly picked up one of the torn scraps. The paper was thin and muddy, although she recognized the words “Ankh-Morpork”. The godawful city. And the genius of Strappi was that anything he was against automatically sounded attractive.

“Ankh-Morpork Times…” she read aloud, before the corporal snatched it out of her hand.

“You can’t just read anything you see, Parts!” he shouted. “You don’t know who wrote it!”

He dropped the damp scrap onto the mud and stamped on it.

“Now let’s move on!” he said.

They moved on. When the squad were more or less in rhythm, and staring at nothing more than their boots or the mist ahead of it, Polly raised her right hand to chest height and carefully turned it palm up so that she could see the fragment of paper that had soggily stayed behind when the rest had been pulled away.

“No Surrender” to Alliance says Duchess (97)

From William de Worde

Valley of the Kneck, Sektober 7.

Borogrovian troops assisted by Lord V

Light Infantry took Kneck Keep this mo

after fierce hand-to-hand fig

I write its armaments which

are being turned on the remn

Borogravian forces acr

His Grace Commander Sir S

told the Times that

surrender had been rej

view the enemy commande

load of stiff-necked fools, don’

in the paper.”

It is understoo

desperate situ

–spread fami

across t

No altern

invas

They were wi