Monstrous Regiment (Discworld 31)

"Don't bother to salute, lads," he said, as they turned guiltily. "Evening, Threeparts. Nice to see nearly all of you again, you artful ol' god-dodger. Where's Corporal Strappi?"

"Haven't seen him all evening, sarge," said Maladict.

"Didn't he come in here with you?"

"No, sarge. We thought he was with you."

Not a muscle moved on Jackrum's face. "I see," he said. "Well, you heard the lieutenant. The boat leaves at midnight. We should be well down the Kneck by Wednesday's dawn. Get a few hours' sleep if you can. Tomorrow's going to be a long day, if you're lucky."

And with that, he turned and went out again. Wind howled outside, and was cut off when the door shut. We'll be well down the Kneck, Polly noted. Well done, Threeparts.

"Missing a corporal?" said Scallot. "Now there's a thing. Usually it's a recruit that goes ay-wole. Well, you heard the sergeant, boys. Time to wash up and turn in."

There was a washroom and latrine, in a rough and ready fashion. Polly found a moment when she and Shufti were in it alone. She'd racked her brains about how best to raise the subject, but as it turned out just a look was all it took.

"It was when I volunteered to do the supper, wasn't it?" Shufti mumbled, staring into the stone sink, which had moss growing in it.

"That was a clue, yes," said Polly.

"A lot of men cook, you know!" said Shufti hotly.

"Yes, but not soldiers, and not enthusiastically," said Polly. "They don't do marinades."

"Have you told anybody?" mumbled Shufti, red in the face.

"No," said Polly, which was, after all, strictly true. "Look, you were good, you had me fooled right up until 'sugar'."

"Yes, yes, I know," Shufti whispered. "I can do the belching and the walking stupidly and even the nose-picking, but I wasn't brought up to swear like you men!"

Us men, thought Polly. Oh, boy.

"We're the coarse and licentious soldiery. I'm afraid it's shit or bust," she said. "Er... why are you doing this?"

Shufti stared into the dank stone sink as if strange green slime was really interesting, and mumbled something.

"Sorry, what was that?" said Polly.

"Going to find my husband," said Shufti, only a little bit louder.

"Oh, dear. How long had you been married?" said Polly, without thinking.

"...not married yet..." said Shufti, in a voice as tall as an ant.

Polly glanced down at the plumpness of Shufti. Oh, dear. Oh, dear. She tried to sound reasonable. "Don't you think that you should - "

"Don't you tell me to go home!" said Shufti, rounding on her. "There's nothing for me back home except disgrace! I'm not going home! I'm going to the war and I'm going to find him! No one's going to tell me not to, Ozzer! No one! This has happened before, anyway! And it ended right! There's a song about it and everything!"

"Oh, that," said Polly. "Yes. I know." Folk singers should be shot. "What I was going to say was that you might find this helps the disguise..." She produced a soft cylinder of woolly socks from her pack and wordlessly handed it over. It was a dangerous thing to do, she knew, but now she was feeling a kind of responsibility to those whose sudden strange fancy hadn't been followed by a plan.

On the way back to her palliasse she caught sight of Wazzer hanging his little picture of the Duchess on a handy hook in the crumbling wall above his mattress. He looked around furtively, failed to spot Polly in the shadows of the doorway, and bobbed a very quick curtsy to the picture. A curtsy, not a bow.

Polly frowned. Four. She was barely surprised, now. And she had one pair of clean socks left. This was soon going to be a barefoot army.

Polly could tell the time by the fire. You got a feel for how long a fire burned, and the logs on this one were grey with ash over the glow beneath. It was gone eleven, she decided.

By the sound of it, no one was getting any sleep. She'd got up after an hour or two of lying on the crackling straw mattress, staring at darkness and listening to things move about underneath her; she'd have stayed on it for longer, but something in the straw seemed to want to push her leg out of the way. Besides, she didn't have any dry blankets. There were blankets in the barracks, but Threeparts had advised against them on account of their carrying, as he put it, "the Itch".

The corporal had left a candle alight. Polly had read Paul's letter again, and taken another look at the piece of printed paper rescued from the muddy road. The words were fractured and she wasn't sure about all of them, but she didn't like the sound of any of them. "Invas" had a particularly unpleasant ring to it.