Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett [130]
“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 Nugganite court, but that would be tricky here, and no one wants this to go on for any longer than it has to. Besides, there have 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 Plotz 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 action on the hilltop where, according to Lieutenant Blouse, your prompt work 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 rumor.”
“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 of opinion 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 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