Monstrous Regiment

Poor old soldier!, her father and his friends had sung while frost formed on the window panes. Poor old soldier! If ever I ’list for a soldier again… the Devil shall be my sergeant!

In the firelight the grin of Sergeant Jackrum was a crescent of blood, his coat the colour of a battlefield sky.

“You are my little lads,” he roared. “And I will look after you.”

They made more than six miles before Jackrum called a halt, and already the land was changing. There were more rocks, fewer trees. The Kneck valley was rich and fertile and it was from here that the fertility had been washed; it was a landscape of ravines and thick scrub woodland, with a few small communities scratching a living from the poverty-stricken soil. It was a good place to hide. And, in here, someone had already hidden. It was a stream-carved gully, but here at the end of summer the stream was just a trickle between the rocks. Jackrum must have found it by smell, because you couldn’t see it from the track.

The ashes of the fire in the small gully were still warm. The sergeant got up, awkwardly, after inspecting them. “Some lads like our pals from last night,” he said.

“Couldn’t it just be a hunter, sarge?” said Maladict.

“It could, corporal, but it ain’t,” said Jackrum. “I brought you in here ’cos it looks like a blind gully and there’s water and there’s good vantage points up there and over there,” he pointed, “and there’s a decent overhang to keep the weather off and it’s hard for anyone to creep up on us. Milit’ry, in other words. And someone else thought the same as me last night. So while they’re out there looking for us, we’ll sit snug where they’ve already looked. Get a couple of lads up on guard right now.”

Polly drew first watch, atop the small cliff at the edge of the gully. It was a good site, no doubt about it. A regiment could hide here. No one could get near without being seen, too. And she was pulling her weight like a proper member of the squad, so with any luck Blouse would find someone to shave him before she was off duty. Through a gap in the treetops below she could see a road of sorts ru

Eventually, Tonker relieved her with a cup of soup. On the far side of the gully, Wazzer was being replaced by Lofty.

“Where’re you from, Ozz?” said Tonker, while Polly savoured the soup.

There couldn’t be any harm in telling. “Munz,” said Polly.

“Really? Someone said you worked in a bar. What was the i

Ah… there was the harm, right there. But she could hardly lie, now. “The Duchess,” she said.

“That big place? Very nobby. Did they treat you okay?”

“What? Oh… yes. Yes. Pretty fair.”

“Hit you at all?”

“Eh? No. Never,” said Polly, nervous of where this was going.

“Work you hard?”

Polly had to consider this. In truth, she worked harder than both the maids, and they at least had an afternoon off every week.

“I was usually the first one up and the last one to bed, if that’s what you mean,” she said. And to change the subject quickly, she went on: “What about you? You know Munz?”

“We both lived there, me and Tilda—I mean Lofty,” said Tonker.

“Oh? Where?”

“The Girls’ Working School,” said Tonker, and looked away.

And that’s the kind of trap small talk can get you in, Polly thought. “Not a nice place, I think,” she said, feeling stupid.

“It was not a nice place, yes. A very nasty place,” said Tonker. “Wazzer was there, we think. We think it was her. Used to be sent out a lot on work hire.” Polly nodded. Once, a girl from the School came and worked as a maid at The Duchess. She’d arrive every morning, scrubbed raw in a clean pinafore, peeling off from a line of very similar girls led by a teacher and flanked by a couple of large men with long sticks. She was ski

Tonker stared into Polly’s eyes, almost mocking her i

“I expect you were glad to leave,” was all Polly could think of to say.

“The basement window was unlocked,” said Tonker. “But I promised Tilda we’d go back one day next summer.”

“Oh, so it wasn’t that bad, then?” said Polly, grateful for some relief.

“No, it’ll burn better,” said Tonker. “Ever run across someone called Father Jupe?”

“Oh, yes,” said Polly, and, feeling that something more was expected of her, added, “He used to come to di

“Yes,” said Tonker. “He was good at seeming.”

Once again there was a dark chasm in the conversation that not even a troll could bridge, and all you could do was draw back from the edge.

“I’d better go and see to the lieu—to the rupert,” Polly said, standing up. “Thank you very much for the soup.”

She worked her way down through the scree and birch thickets until she emerged by the little stream that ran through the gully. And there, like some awful river god, was Sergeant Jackrum.

His red coat, a tent for lesser men, was draped carefully over a bush. He himself was sitting on a rock with his shirt off and his huge braces dangling, so that only a yellowing woolly vest saved the world from a sight of the man’s bare chest. For some reason, though, he’d kept his shako on. His shaving kit, with a razor like a small machete and a shaving brush you could use to hang wallpaper, was on the rock beside him.

Jackrum was bathing his feet in the stream. He glanced up when Polly approached, and nodded amiably. “’Morning, Perks,” he said. “Don’t rush. Never rush for ruperts. Sit down for a spell. Get yer boots off. Let yer feet feel the fresh air. Look after your feet, and your feet will look after you.” He pulled out his big clasp-knife and the rope of chewing tobacco. “Sure you won’t join me?”

“No thanks, sarge.” Polly sat down on a rock on the opposite side of the stream, which was only a few feet wide, and started to tug at her boots. She felt as though she’d been given an order. Besides, right now she felt she needed the shock of clean, cold water.

“Good lad. Filthy habit. Worse’n the smokes,” said Jackrum, carving off a lump. “Got started on it when I was but a lad. Better’n striking a light at night, see? Don’t want to give away your position. ’Course, you gotta gob a bundle every so often, but gobbin’ in the dark don’t show up.”

Polly dabbled her feet. The icy water did indeed feel refreshing. It seemed to jolt her alive. In the trees around the gully, birds sang.

“Say it, Perks,” said Jackrum, after a while.

“Say what, sarge?”

“Oh, bleedin’ hell, Perks, it’s a nice day, don’t muck me around. I seen the way you’ve been looking at me.”

“All right, sarge. You murdered that man last night.”

“Really? Prove it,” said Jackrum calmly.

“Well, I can’t, can I? But you set it up. You even sent Igor and Wazzer to guard him. They’re not good with weapons.”

“How good would they have to be, d’you think? Four of you against a man tied up?” said Jackrum. “Nah. That sergeant was dead the moment we got ’im, and he knew it. It took a bloody genius like your rupert to make him think he’d got a chance. We’re out in the woods, lad. What was Blouse go