Monstrous Regiment

At least I was someone watching the enemy, Polly thought furiously as she walked away. I wasn’t someone watching another soldier. Who does he think he is? Or she is?

She heard the raised voices as she pushed through a thicket.

“You can’t torture an unarmed man!” That was Blouse’s voice.

“Well, I’m not waiting for him to arm himself, sir! He knows stuff! And he’s a spy!”

“Don’t you dare kick him in the ribs again! That is an order, sergeant!”

“Asking nicely didn’t work, did it, sir? ‘Pretty please with sprinkles on top’ is not a recognized method of interrogation! You shouldn’t be here, sir! You should say ‘Sergeant, find out what you can from the prisoner!’ and then go somewhere and wait until I tell you what I got out of him, sir!”

“You did it again!”

“What? What?”

“You kicked him again!”

“No, I didn’t!”

“Sergeant, I gave you an order!”

“And?”

“Tea’s up!” said Polly cheerfully.

Both men turned. Their expression changed. If they had been birds, their feathers would have gently settled back.

“Ah, Perks,” said Blouse. “Well done.”

“Yeah… good lad,” said Sergeant Jackrum.

Polly’s presence seemed to lower the temperature. The two men drank their tea and eyed one another warily.

“You’ll have noticed, sergeant, that the men were wearing the dark-green uniform of the First Battalion the Zlobenian Fifty-ninth Bowmen. A skirmishing battalion,” said Blouse, with cold politeness. “That is not the uniform of a spy, sergeant.”

“Yessir? But they’d let their uniforms get very dirty, then. No shine on the buttons, sir.”

“Patrolling behind enemy lines is not spying, sergeant. You must have done it in your time.”

“More times than you could count, sir,” said Jackrum. “And I knew full well that if I got caught I was due a good kicking in the nadgers. But skirmishers is the worst, sir. You think you’re safe in the lines, next moment it turns out that some bastard sitting in the bushes on a hill has been working out windage and yardage and has dropped an arrow right through your mate’s head.” He picked up a strange-looking longbow. “See these things they’ve got? Burleigh and Stronginthearm Number Five Recurved, made in bloody Ankh-Morpork. A real killing weapon. I say we give him a choice, sir. He can tell us what he knows, and go out easy. Or keep mum, and go out hard.”

“No, sergeant. He is an enemy officer taken in battle and entitled to fair treatment.”

“No, sir. He’s a sergeant, and they don’t deserve no respect at all, sir. I should know. They’re cu

There was a grunt from the bound prisoner.

“Loosen his gag. Perks,” said Blouse. Instinctively, even if the instinct was only a couple of days old, Polly glanced at Jackrum. The sergeant shrugged. She pulled the rag down.

“I’ll talk,” said the prisoner, spitting out cotton fluff. “But not to that tub of lard! I’ll talk to the officer. You keep that man away from me!”

“You’re in no position to negotiate, soldier boy!” snarled Jackrum.

“Sergeant,” said the lieutenant, “I’m sure you have things to see to. Please do so. Send a couple of men back here. He can’t do anything against four of us.”

“But—”

“That was another order, sergeant,” said Blouse. He turned to the prisoner as Jackrum stumped off. “What is your name, man?”

“Sergeant Towering, lieutenant. And if you are a sensible man, you will release me and surrender.”

“Surrender?” said Blouse, as Igorina and Wazzer ran into the clearing, armed and bewildered.

“Yep. I’ll put in a good word for you when the boys catch up with us. You don’t want to know how many men are looking for you. Could I have a drink, please?”

“What? Oh, yes. Of course,” said Blouse, as if caught out in a display of bad ma

Towering gave him a cockeyed grin. “You don’t know?”

“No,” said Blouse coldly.

“You really don’t know?” Now Towering was laughing. He was far too relaxed for a bound man, and Blouse sounded far too much like a nice but worried man trying to appear firm and determined. To Polly, it was like watching a child bluffing in poker against a man called Doc.

“I don’t wish to play games, man. Out with it!” said Blouse.

“Everyone knows about you, lieutenant. You’re the Monstrous Regiment, you are!” he said. “No offence meant, of course. They say you’ve got a troll and a vampire and an Igor and a werewolf. They say you…” he began to chuckle “…they say you overpowered Prince Heinrich and his guard and stole his boots and made him hop away in the altogether!”

In a thicket some way off, a nightingale sang. For quite a while, uninterrupted. Then Blouse said, “Hah, no, you are in fact wrong. The man was Captain Horentz—”

“Yeah, right, like he’d tell you who he was with you pointing swords at him!” said Towering. “I heard from one of my mates that one of you kicked him in the meat-and-two-veg, but I haven’t seen the picture yet.”

“Someone took a picture of him getting kicked?” squeaked Polly, drenched in a sudden horror.

“Not of that, no. But there’s copies all over the place of him in chains and I hear it’s been sent by the clacks to Ankh-Morpork.”

“Is… is he a

“Well, now, let me see,” said Towering sarcastically. “A

Even Blouse could see Polly’s distress. “Er… Perks,” he said, “it was you, wasn’t it, who—”

Over and over in Polly’s head the words ogodIkickedthePrinceinthefruitandveg were going round and round like a hamster in a runaway treadmill until, suddenly, it ran up against something solid.

“Yessir,” she snapped. “He was forcing himself upon a young woman, sir. If you recall?”

Blouse’s frown faded, and became a grin of childlike duplicity. “Ah, yes, indeed. He was ‘pressing his suit’ in no small way, was he not?”

“He didn’t have ironing in mind, sir!” said Polly fervently.

Towering glanced at Wazzer, grimly clutching a crossbow that Polly knew for a fact she was scared of, and Igorina, who’d much rather be holding a surgeon’s knife than the sabre in her hand and looked worried sick. Polly saw his brief smile.

“And there you have it, Sergeant Towering,” said the lieutenant, turning to the prisoner. “Of course, we all know there is some atrocious behaviour in times of war, but it is not the sort of thing we would expect of a royal prince.5 If we are to be pursued because a gallant young soldier prevented matters from becoming even more disgusting, then so be it.”

“Now I am impressed,” said Towering. “A real knight errant, eh? He’s a credit to you, lieutenant. Any chance of that tea?”

Blouse’s ski

Leaving the three of you with this man who’s positively radiating an intention to escape, Polly thought. “Could perhaps Private Goom go and fetch—” she began.

“A word in private, Perks?” snapped Blouse. He drew her closer, but Polly kept her eye on Sergeant Towering. He might be bound hand and foot, but she wouldn’t have trusted a man who gri

“Perks, you are making a great contribution but I really will not have my orders continually questioned,” said Blouse. “You are my batman, after all. I think I run a ‘happy ship’ here, but I will be obeyed. Please?”

It was like being savaged by a goldfish, but she had to admit he had a point. “Er… sorry, sir,” she said, backing away as long as possible so as not to miss the end of the tragedy. Then she turned and ran.

5. Lieutenant Blouse read only the more technical history books.