Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett [122]
“I don’t know, sir,” said Polly.
“That was meant to be more of a rhetorical cry of despair rather than an actual question, Perks,” said Blouse.
“Sorry, sir,” said Polly. She took a deep breath, ready for the plunge into the icy depths of the truth. “Sir, you ought to know that—”
“And I’m afraid once they realize we aren’t women we’ll be put in the big dungeons,” he said. “Very big, and very dirty, I’m told. And very crowded.”
“Sir, we are women, sir,” said Polly.
“Yes, well done, Perks, but we don’t have to pretend anymore.”
“You don’t understand, sir. We really are women. All of us.”
Blouse grinned nervously. “I think you’ve got a little…confused, Perks. I seem to recall that the same thing happened to Wrigglesworth—”
“Sir—”
“—although I have to say he was very good at choosing curtains—”
“No, sir. I was a—I am a girl, and I cut my hair and pretended I was a boy and took the Duchess’s shilling, sir. Take my word for it, sir, because I really don’t want to have to draw you a picture. We played a trick on you, sir. Well, not a trick, really, but we, all of us, had reasons for being somewhere else, sir, or at least not being where we were. We lied.”
Blouse stared at her.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, sir. I am of the female persuasion. I check every day, sir,” Polly added.
“And Private Halter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Lofty?”
“Oh, yes, sir. Both of them, sir. Don’t go there, sir.”
“What about Shufti?”
“Expecting a baby, sir.”
Suddenly, Blouse looked terrified. “Oh, no! Here?”
“Not for several months, sir, I believe.”
“And poor little Private Goom?”
“A girl, sir. And Igor is really an Igorina. And wherever she is, Carborundum is really Jade. We’re not sure about Corporal Maladict. But the rest of us definitely have pink blankets, sir.”
“But you didn’t act like women!”
“No, sir. We acted like men, sir. Sorry, sir. We just wanted to find our men or get away or prove a point or something. Sorry it had to happen to you, sir.”
“You’re sure about all this, are you?”
What are you expecting me to say? Polly thought. “Whoops, now I come to think about it, yes, we’re really men after all?”
She settled for saying: “Yes, sir.”
“So…you’re not called Oliver, then?” It seemed to Polly that the lieutenant was having a lot of difficulty with all this; he kept asking the same basic question in different ways, in the hope of getting something other than the answers he didn’t want to hear.
“No, sir. I’m Polly, sir—”
“Oh? Do you know there was a song about—”
“Yes, sir,” said Polly firmly. “Believe me, I’d rather you didn’t even hum it.”
Blouse stared at the far wall, eyes slightly unfocused. Oh dear, Polly thought.
“You took a terrible risk,” he said distantly. “A battlefield is no place for women.”
“This war isn’t staying on battlefields. At a time like this, a pair of trousers is a girl’s best friend, sir.”
Blouse fell silent again. Suddenly, Polly felt very sorry for him. He was a bit of a fool, in that special way very clever people have of being foolish, but he wasn’t a bad man. He’d been decent to the squad and he’d cared about them. He didn’t deserve this.
“Sorry you have to be involved, sir,” she said.
Blouse looked up. “Sorry?” he said, and to her amazement he was looking more cheerful than he had all day. “Good heavens, you don’t have to be sorry. Do you know anything about history, Polly?”
“Can we stick with Perks, sir? I’m still a soldier. No, I don’t know much history, sir. At least, much that I trust.”
“Then you’ve never heard of the Amazon warriors of Samothrip? The most fearsome fighting force for hundreds of years. All women! Absolutely merciless in battle! They were deadly with the longbow, although in order to get maximum draw they had to cut off one of their, um…er…I say, you ladies haven’t been cutting