Monstrous Regiment

“Can’t be too careful, thur,” said Igorina. She gri

“Of course, I have rather short hair at present…” Blouse mused.

Polly thought of her ringlets, now lost and probably stroked by Strappi. But desperation spooled through her memory.

“They looked like older women, mostly,” she said quickly. “They wore headscarves and wimples. I’m sure Igori—sure Igor can make up something, sir.”

“We Igorth are very rethortheful, thur,” Igorina agreed. She pulled a black leather wallet out of her jacket. “Ten minuteth with a needle, thur, that’th all I need.”

“Oh, I can do old women wonderfully well,” said Blouse. With a speed that made Lofty jump, he suddenly thrust out both hands twisted like claws, contorted his face into an expression of mad imbecility and screeched, “Oh deary me! My poor old feet! Things today aren’t what they used to be! Lawks!”

Behind him, Sergeant Jackrum put his head in his hands.

“Amazing, sir,” said Maladict. “I’ve never seen a transformation like it!”

“Perhaps just a wee bit less old, sir?” Polly suggested, although in truth Blouse had reminded her of her Auntie Hattie two-thirds of the way through a glass of sherry.

“You think so?” said Blouse. “Oh, well, if you’re really sure.”

“And, er, if you do meet a guard, er, old women don’t usually try to, try to—”

“—canoodle—” whispered Maladict, whose mind had clearly been hurtling down the same horrible slope.

“—canoodle with them,” Polly finished, blushing, and then after a second’s thought added, “Unless she’s had a glass of sherry, anyway.”

“And I do thuggetht you go and have a thhave, thur…”

“Thhave?” said Blouse.

“Shave, sir,” said Polly. “I’ll lay out the kit, sir.”

“Ooh, yes. Of course. Don’t see many old women with beards, eh? Except my Auntie Parthenope, as I recall. And… er… no one’s got a couple of balloons, have they?”

“Er, why, sir?” said Tonker.

“A big bosom always gets a laugh,” said Blouse. He looked round the row of faces. “Not a good idea, perhaps? I got a huge round of applause as the Widow Trembler in ’Tis Pity She’s a Tree. No?”

“I think Igor could sew something a bit more, er, realistic, sir,” said Polly.

“Really? Oh, well, if you really think so,” said Blouse dejectedly. “I’ll just go and get myself into character.”

He disappeared into the building’s only other room. After a few seconds, the rest of them heard him reciting “lawks, my poor feet!” in varying tones of fingernail screech.

The squad went into a huddle.

“What was all that about?” said Tonker.

“He was talking about the theatre,” said Maladict.

“What’s that?”

“An Abomination Unto Nuggan, of course,” said the vampire. “It’d take too long to explain, dear child. People pretending to be other people to tell a story in a huge room where the world is a different place. Other people sitting and watching them and eating chocolate. Very, very Abominable.”

“I woud like to eat chocolates in a great big room where the world is a different place,” mumbled Lofty sadly.

“I saw a Punch and Judy show in the town once,” said Shufti. “Then they dragged the man away and it became an Abomination.”

“I remember that,” said Polly. Crocodiles should not be seen to eat figures of authority, apparently, although until the puppet show no one in the town knew what a crocodile was. The bit where the clown had beaten his wife had also contravened Abomination, because he’d used a stick thicker than the regulation one inch.

“The lieutenant won’t last a minute, you know,” she said.

“Yes, but he won’t listen, will he?” said Igorina. “I’ll do the best with my scissorth and needle to make a woman of him, but—”

“Igorina, when it’s you talking about this sort of thing, some very strange pictures turn up in my head,” said Maladict.

“Sorry,” said Igorina

“Can you pray for him, Wazzer?” said Polly. “I think we’re going to need a miracle here.”

Wazzer obediently closed her eyes and folded her hands for a moment and then said shyly: “I’m afraid she says it will take more than a turkey.”

“Wazz?” said Polly. “Do you really—” Then she stopped, with the bright little face watching her.

“Yes, I do,” said Wazzer. “I really talk to the Duchess.”

“Yeah, well, I used to, too,” snapped Tonker. “I used to beg her, once. That stupid face just stared and did nothing. She never stopped anything. All that stuff, all that stupid—” The girl stopped, too many words blocking her brain. “Anyway, why should she talk to you?”

“Because I listen,” said Wazzer quietly.

“And what does she say?”

“Sometimes she just cries.”

“She cries?”

“Because there are so many things that people want, and she can’t give them anything.” Wazzer gave them all one of her smiles that lit up the room. “But everything will be fine when I am in the right place,” she said.

“Well, that’s all right, then—” Polly began, in that cloud of deep embarrassment that Wazzer called up within her.

“Yeah, right,” said Tonker. “But I’m not praying to anyone, okay? Ever again. I don’t like this, Wazz. You’re a decent kid, but I don’t like the way you smile—” She stopped. “Oh, no…”

Polly stared at Wazzer. Her face was thin and all angles, and the Duchess in the painting had looked, well, like an overfed turbot, but now the smile, the actual smile…

“I’m not putting up with that!” Tonker snarled. “You stop that right now! I mean it! You’re giving me the creeps! Ozz, you stop her—him smiling like that!”

“Just calm down, all of you—” Polly began.

“Bleedin’ well shut up!” said Jackrum. “A man can’t hear himself chew. Look, you’re all edgy. That happens. And Wazzer here’s just got a bit of religion before the fight. That happens, too. And what you do is, you save it all up for the enemy. Quieten down. That is what we in the milit’ry call an order, okay?”

“Perks?” It was Blouse.

“You’d better hurry,” said Maladict. “His corset probably wants lacing…”

In fact Blouse was sitting on what remained of a chair.

“Ah, Perks. A shave, please,” he said.

“Oh, I thought your hand was better, sir…”

“Er… yes.” Blouse looked awkward. “The problem, Perks, is… I have never actually shaved myself at all, to be honest. I had a man to do it for me at school, and then of course in the army I shared a batman with Blitherskite and, er, those attempts I made on my own behalf have been somewhat bloody. I never really thought about it until I got to Plotz and, er… suddenly it was embarrassing…”

“Sorry about that, sir,” said Polly. It was a strange old world.

“Later on perhaps you could give me a few tips,” Blouse went on. “You keep yourself beautifully shaven, I can’t help noticing. General Froc would be pleased. He’s very anti-whiskers, they say.”

“If you like, sir,” said Polly. There was no getting out of it. She made a show of sharpening the razor. Perhaps she could manage it with only a few small cuts…

“Do you think I should have a reddened nose?” said Blouse.

“Probably, sir,” said Polly. Sarge knows about me, I’m sure, she thought. I know he does. Why’s he keeping quiet?

“Probably, Perks?”

“What? Oh. No… why a red nose, sir?” said Polly, applying the lather with vigour.

“It would look more pff amusing, perhaps.”

“Not sure that’s the purpose of the exercise, sir. Now, if you’d just, er, lie back, sir—”

“There’s something you should know about young Perks, sir.”

Polly actually yelped. Walking as silently as only a sergeant can, Jackrum had stolen into the room.

“pff Sergeant?” said Blouse.

“Perks doesn’t know how to shave a man, sir,” said Jackrum. “Give me the razor, Perks.”

“Doesn’t know how to shave?” said Blouse.