Monstrous Regiment (Discworld 31)

"If you're a hallucination, how do you know that?"

I KNOW IT BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT. I AM SIMPLY BETTER AT ARTICULATING IT.

"I'm not going to die, am I? I mean, right now?"

NO. BUT YOU WERE TOLD THAT YOU WOULD WALK WITH DEATH EVERY DAY.

"Oh... yes. Corporal Scallot said that."

HE IS AN OLD FRIEND. YOU MIGHT SAY HE IS ON THE INSTALMENT PLAN.

"Do you mind walking a bit more... invisibly?"

OF COURSE. HOW'S THIS?

"And quietly, too?"

There was silence, which was presumably the answer. "And polish yourself up a bit," said Polly to the empty air. "And that robe needs a wash."

There was no reply, but she felt better for saying it.

Shufti had cooked beef stew with dumplings and herbs. It was magnificent. It was also a mystery.

"I don't recall us passing a cow, private," said Blouse, as he handed his tin plate along for a second helping.

"Er... no, sir."

"And yet you have acquired beef?"

"Er... yes, sir. Er... when that writer man came up in his cart, well, when you were talking, er, I crept round and took a look inside..."

"There's a name for someone who does that sort of thing, private," said Blouse severely.

"Yeah, it's quartermaster, Shufti. Well done," said Jackrum. "If that writer man gets hungry, he can always eat his words, eh, lieutenant?"

"Er... yes," said Blouse carefully. "Yes. Of course. Good initiative, private."

"Oh, I didn't think it up, sir," said Shufti brightly. "Sarge told me to."

Polly stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth, and swivelled her eyes from sergeant to lieutenant.

"You teach looting, sergeant?" said Blouse. There was a joint gasp from the squad. If this was the bar back at The Duchess, the regulars would have been hurrying out of the doors and Polly would have been helping her father get the bottles off the shelf.

"Not looting, sir, not looting," said Jackrum, calmly licking his spoon. "Under Duchess's Regulations, Rule 611, Section 1 [c], Paragraph i, sir, it would be plundering, said cart being the property of bloody Ankh-Morpork, sir, which is aiding and abetting the enemy. Plundering is allowed, sir."

The two men held eye contact for a moment, and then Blouse reached behind him and into his pack. Polly saw him draw out a small yet thick book.

"Rule 611," he murmured. Blouse glanced up at the sergeant, and thumbed through the thin, shiny pages. "611. Pillaging, Plundering and Looting. Ah, yes. And... let me see... you are with us, Sergeant Jackrum, owing to Rule 796, I think you reminded me at the time..."

There was another silence broken only by the riffle of the pages. There's no Rule 796, Polly remembered. Are they going to fight over this?

"796, 796," said Blouse softly. "Ah..." He stared at the page, and Jackrum stared at him. ;Don't you lads read that rubbish, you don't know where it's been," said Sergeant Jackrum jovially, arriving behind them. "It'll all be lies. We are leaving right - Corporal Maladict!"

Maladict, emerging from the trees, gave a lazy salute. He was still wearing his blanket.

"What are you doing out of uniform?"

"I'm in uniform underneath, sarge. We don't want to be seen, right? Like this, we become part of the jungle."