Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment

“Not big enough to climb through,” said Polly.

“No, but we can hang ourselves before they do it.”

“I’m told it’s a very painful way to die,” said Polly.

“Who by?” said Tonker.

Occasionally the sounds of battle filtered through the narrow window. Mostly it was yells; often it was screams. Fun was being had.

Igorina sat staring at her hands. “What’s wrong with these?” she said. “Didn’t I do a good job on that arm? But no, they’re afraid I might touch their privates.”

“Perhaps you could have promised to operate only on officers,” said Tonker. No one laughed, and probably no one would have bothered to run for it if the door had swung open. It was a proud and noble thing to escape from the enemy, but if you were escaping from your own side, where would you escape to?

On one of the bunks, Wazzer slept like a hibernating bear. You had to watch her for some time to see her breathe.

“What can they do to us?” said Shufti nervously. “You know… really do to us?”

“We were wearing men’s clothes,” said Polly.

“But that’s only a beating.”

“Oh, they’ll find some other stuff, believe you me,” said Tonker. “Besides, who knows we’re here?”

“But we got them out of prison! Our side!”

Polly sighed. “That’s why, Shufti. No one wants to know that a bunch of girls dressed up as soldiers and broke into a big fort and let out half an army. Everyone knows females can’t do that. Neither side wants us here, understand?”

“On a battlefield like this, who’ll worry about a few more bodies?” said Tonker.

“Don’t say that! Lieutenant Blouse spoke up for us,” said Shufti.

“What, Daphne ?” said Tonker. “Hah! Just another body. They’ve probably locked him up somewhere, just like us.”

There was a distant cheering, which went on for some time.

“Sounds like they’ve got the building,” said Polly.

“Hooray for us,” said Tonker, and spat.

After a while, a small hatch was opened in the door and a silent man handed through a big can of scubbo and a tray of horse-bread. It wasn’t bad scubbo or, at least, not bad scubbo by the standards of bad scubbo. There was some discussion about whether being fed meant you weren’t going to be executed, until someone pointed out the tradition of the Last Hearty Meal.

Igorina gave it as her cultural opinion that the stew was not only hearty but lungy and livery too. But at least it was hot.

A couple of hours later a can of saloop was handed through, with some mugs. This time, the guard winked.

An hour after that, the door was unlocked. A young man in a major’s uniform stepped inside.

Oh well, let’s go on as we started, Polly thought. She leapt to her feet. “Squaddd… tennn… hut! ”

With reasonable speed, the squad at least managed to stand up straight and in a line. The major acknowledged her by tapping the peak of his cap with a stick. It was definitely thinner than an inch.

“Stand easy… corporal, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yessir.” That sounded promising.

“I am Major Clogston, of the Provost’s office,” said the major. “And I’d like you to tell me all about it. About everything. I will make notes, if you don’t mind.”

“What’s this about?” said Tonker.

“Ah, you’d be… Private Halter,” said Clogston. “I’ve already spoken at length to Lieutenant Blouse.” He turned, nodded at the guard hovering in the doorway, and shut the door. He also closed the hatch.

“You are going to be tried,” he said, sitting down on the spare bunk. “The politicos want you to be tried by a full Nugganatic court, but that would be tricky here, and no one wants this to go on for any longer than it has to. Besides, there has been an… unusual event. Someone has sent a communique to General Froc asking about you all by name. At least,” he added, “by your surnames.”

“Was that Lord Rust, sir?”

“No, it was someone called William de Worde. I don’t know if you’ve run across his newspaper thing? We’re wondering how he knew you were captured.”

“Well, we didn’t tell him!” said Polly.

“It makes things a little… tricky,” said Clogston. “Although, from your point of view, a lot more hopeful. There are those members of the army who are, let us say, considering the future of Borogravia. That is, they would like there to be one. My job is to present your case to the tribunal.”

“Is that a court martial?” said Polly.

“No, they’re not that stupid. Calling it a court martial would indicate that they accept that you are soldiers.”

“You did,” said Shufti.

“ De facto is not de jure ,” said Clogston. “Now, as I said… tell me your story, Miss Perks.”

“That’s Corporal, thank you!”

“I apologize for the lapse. Now… go on…” Clogston opened his bag and produced a pair of half-moon spectacles, which he put on, and took out a pencil and something white and square. “Whenever you’re ready?” he added.

“Sir, are you really going to write on a jam sandwich?” said Polly.

“What?” The major looked down, and laughed. “Oh. No. Excuse me. I really mustn’t miss meals. Blood sugar, you know…”

“Only it’s oozing, sir. Don’t mind us. We’ve eaten.”

It took an hour, with many interruptions and corrections, and two more sandwiches. The major used up quite a lot of notebook, and occasionally had to stop and stare at the ceiling.

“…and then we were thrown in here,” said Polly, sitting back.

“Pushed, really,” said Igorina. “Nudged.”

“Mmm,” said Clogston. “You say Corporal Strappi, as you knew him, was… suddenly very ill at the thought of going into battle?”

“Yessir.”

“And in the tavern in Plün you really kneed Prince Heinrich in the fracas?”

“In or about the fracas, sir. And I didn’t know it was him at the time, sir.”

“I see you haven’t mentioned the attack on the hilltop where, according to Lieutenant Blouse, your prompt action got the enemy code book…”

“Not really worth mentioning, sir. We didn’t do much with it.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Because of you and that nice man from the newspaper the Alliance has had two regiments trotting around in the mountains after some guerrilla leader called ‘Tiger’. Prince Heinrich insisted, and is in fact in command. He is, you could say, a sore loser. Very sore, according to rumour.”

“The newspaper writer believed all that stuff?” said Polly, amazed.

“I don’t know, but he certainly wrote it down. You say Lord Rust offered to let you all go home quietly?”

“Yessir.”

“And the consensus was that he could…”

“Stick it up his jumper, sir.”

“Oh, yes. I couldn’t read my own writing. J… U… M…” Clogston carefully wrote the word in capital letters, and then said: “I am not saying this, I am not here, but some… senior… people on our side are wondering if you would just quietly go…?”

The question hung in the air like a corpse from a beam.

“I’ll put that down as ‘jumper’ too, then, shall I?” said Clogston.

“Some of us have got nowhere to go to,” said Tonker.

“Or no one to go with,” said Shufti.

“We haven’t done anything wrong,” said Polly.

“Jumper it is, then,” said the major. He folded up his little spectacles and sighed. “They won’t even tell me what charges are going to be made.”

“Being Bad Girls,” said Tonker. “Who are we fooling, sir? The enemy wanted just to be quietly rid of us, and the general wants the same thing. That’s the trouble about the good guys and the bad guys. They’re all guys!”