Monstrous Regiment - Terry Pratchett [24]
“D’you know what can happen to you for cheeking a superior officer?” screamed Strappi.
“No! Tell me, is it worse than whatever it is these people are running away from?”
“You signed up, Mr. Bloodsucker! You obey orders!”
“Right! But I don’t remember anyone ordering me not to think!”
“Enough of that!” snapped Jackrum. “Less shouting down there! Move on! Carborundum, you give people a push if they don’t make way, y’hear?”
They moved on. After a while, the press of people abated a little, so that what had been a torrent became a trickle. Occasionally, there would be a family group, or just one hurrying woman, burdened with bags. One old man was struggling with a wheelbarrow full of turnips.
They’re even taking the crops out of the fields, Polly noted. And everyone moved at a kind of half run, as if things would be a little better when they’d caught up with the mass of people ahead. Or merely overtook them, perhaps.
The squad was passed by an old woman bent double under the weight of a black-and-white pig.
And then there was just the road, rutted and muddy. An afternoon mist was rising from the fields on either side, quiet and clammy. After the noise of the refugees, the silence of the low countryside was suddenly oppressive. The only sound was the trudge and splash of the recruits’ boots.
“Permission to speak, Sarge?” said Polly.
“Yes, private?” said Jackrum.
“How far is it to Plotz?”
“You don’t have to tell ’em, Sarge!” said Strappi.
“About five miles,” said Sergeant Jackrum. “You’ll get your uniforms and weapons at the depot there.”
“That’s a milit’ry secret, Sarge,” Strappi whined.
“We could shut our eyes so’s we don’t see what we’re wearing, how about that?” said Maladict.
“Stop that, Private Maladict,” said Jackrum. “Just keep moving, and guard that tongue.”
They plodded on. The road grew muddier. A breeze sprang up, but instead of carrying the mist away it merely streamed it across the damn fields in twisty, clammy, unpleasant shapes. The sun became an orange ball.
Polly saw something large and white flutter across the field, blown by the wind. At first she thought it was a migratory lesser egret that had left things a little late, but it was clearly being blown by the wind.
It flopped down once or twice and then, as a gust caught it, blew across the road and wrapped itself across Corporal Strappi’s face.
He screamed.
Lofty grabbed at the fluttering thing, which was damp. In tore in his—her—hands, and most of it dropped away from the struggling corporal.
“It’s just a bit of paper,” she said.
Strappi flailed at it. “I knew that,” he said. “I never asked you!”
Polly picked up one of the torn scraps. The paper was thin and muddy, although she recognized the words “Ankh-Morpork.” The godawful city. And the genius of Strappi was that anything he was against automatically sounded attractive.
“Ankh-Morpork Times…” she read aloud, before the corporal snatched it out of her hand.
“You can’t just read anything you see, Parts!” he shouted. “You don’t know who wrote it!”
He dropped the damp scrap onto the mud and stamped on it.
“Now let’s move on!” he said.
They moved on. When the squad was more or less in rhythm, and staring at nothing more than its boots or the mist ahead of it, Polly raised her right hand to chest height and carefully turned it palm up so that she could see the fragment of paper that had soggily stayed behind when the rest had been pulled away.
“NO SURRENDER”
TO ALLIANCE SAYS
DUCHESS (97)
From William de Worde
Valley of the Kneck, Sektober 7.
Borogravian troops assisted by Lord V
Light Infantry took Kneck Keep this mo
after fierce hand-to-hand fig
I write its armaments which
are being turned on the remn
Borogravian forces acr
His Grace Commander Sir S
told the Times that
surrender had been rej
view the enemy commande
load of stiff-neck fools, don’
in the paper.”
It is understoo
desperate situ
-spread fami
across t
No altern
invas
They were winning, weren’t they? So where did the word “surrender” come from? And what was the Alliance?
And then