Monstrous Regiment

“You gentlemen might like to move back a bit,” murmured Eyebrow.

“What’s going to happen?” said Polly.

“It takes ’em all differently,” said Eyebrow. “Looks like this one’s—no, there he goes…”

With considerable style, Carborundum went over backwards. There was no sagging at the knees, no girly attempt to soften the fall. He just went from standing up, one hand out, to lying down, one hand up. He even rocked gently for some time after hitting the floor.

“Got no head for his drink,” said Eyebrow. “Typical of the young bucks. Wants to play the big troll, comes in here, orders an Electrick Floorbanger, doesn’t know how to handle it.”

“Is he going to come round?” said Maladict.

“No, that’s it until dawn, I reckon,” said Eyebrow. “Brain stops working.”

“Shouldn’t affect him too much, then,” said Corporal Strappi, stepping up. “Right, you miserable lot. You’re sleeping in the shed out the back, understand? Practically waterproof, hardly any rats. We’re out of here at dawn! You’re in the army now!”

Polly lay in the dark, on a bed of musty straw. There was no question of anyone’s getting undressed. The rain hammered on the roof and the wind blew through a crack under the door, despite Igor’s attempt to stuff it with straw. There was some desultory conversation, during which Polly found that she was sharing the dank shed with “Tonker” Halter, “Shufti” Manickle, “Wazzer” Goom and “Lofty” Tewt. Maladict and Igor didn’t seem to have acquired repeatable nicknames. She’d become Ozzer by general agreement.

Slightly to Polly’s surprise the boy now known as Wazzer had taken a small picture of the Duchess out of his pack and had nervously hung it on an old nail. No one else said anything as he prayed to it. It was what you were supposed to do…

They said the Duchess was dead…

Polly had been washing up when she’d heard the men talking late one night, and it’s a poor woman who can’t eavesdrop while making a noise at the same time.

Dead, they said, but the people up at PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg weren’t admitting it. That was ’cos what with there being no children, and with royalty marrying one another’s cousins and gra

At which point her father had stopped the speaker dead. There are some conversations where you don’t even want people to remember you were in the same room.

Dead or alive, the Duchess watched over you.

The recruits tried to sleep.

Occasionally, someone belched or expelled wind noisily, and Polly responded with a few fake eructations of her own. That seemed to inspire greater effort on the part of the other sleepers, to the point where the roof rattled and dust fell down, before everyone subsided. Once or twice she heard people stagger out into the windy darkness, in theory for the privy, but probably, given male impatience in these matters, to aim much closer to home. Once, coasting in and out of a troubled dream, she thought she heard someone sobbing.

Taking care not to rustle too much, Polly pulled out the much-folded, much-read, much-stained last letter from her brother, and read it by the light of the solitary, guttering candle. It had been opened and heavily mangled by the censors, and bore the stamp of the Duchy. It read:

Dear all,

We are in ■■■■■ which is ■■■ with a ■■big thing with knobs. On ■■■■we with ■■■■■ which is just as well because ■■■ out of. I am keeping well. The food is ■■■■. ■■■ we’ll ■■ at the ■■■ but my mate ■■er says not to worry, it’ll be all over by ■■■■ and we shall all have medals.

Chins up!

Paul

It was in a careful hand, the excessively clear and well-shaped writing of someone who has to think about every letter. She slowly folded it up again. Paul had wanted medals, because they were shiny. That’d been almost a year ago, when any recruiting party that came past went away with the best part of a battalion, and there had been people waving them off with flags and music. Sometimes, now, smaller parties of men came back. The lucky ones were missing only one arm or one leg. There were no flags.

She unfolded another piece of paper. It was a pamphlet. It was headed “From the Mothers of Borogravia!!” The mothers of Borogravia were very definite about wanting to send their sons off to war Against the Zlobenian Aggressor!! and used a great many exclamation marks to say so. And this was odd, because the mothers in Munz had not seemed keen on the idea of their sons going off to war, and positively tried to drag them back. Several copies of the pamphlet seemed to have reached every home, even so. It was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.

Polly had learned to read and write after a fashion because the i

But Polly had learned anyway, because Paul hadn’t, at least to the standard needed to run an i

At Paul’s insistence, she’d read the whole of “From the Mothers of Borogravia!!” to him, including the bits about heroes and there being no greater good than to die for your country. She wished, now, she hadn’t done that. Paul did what he was told. Unfortunately, he believed what he was told, too.

Polly put the papers away and dozed again, until her bladder woke her up. Oh, well, at least at this time of the morning she’d have a clear run. She reached out for her pack and stepped as softly as she could out into the rain.

It was mostly just coming off the trees now, which were roaring in the wind that blew up the valley. The moon was hidden in the clouds, but there was just enough light to make out the i

A lot of pla

The wind shook the dank building. In the dark she thought of Auntie Hattie, who’d gone a bit strange round her sixtieth birthday and persistently accused passing young men of looking up her dress. She was even worse after a glass of wine, and she had one joke: “What does a man stand up to do, a woman sit down to do and a dog lift its leg to do?” And then, when everyone was too embarrassed to answer, she’d triumphantly shriek, “Shake hands!” and fall over. Auntie Hattie was an Abomination all by herself.