Monstrous Regiment Read Online Free PDF Page B

ceiling, table, fingers, sergeant. “No,” said Carborundum.
    “Right. Right. Right,” said the sergeant quickly. “It’s not a regulation as per such, actually, it’s more of an advisory. Silly one, too, eh? I’ve always thought so. Glad to have you with us,” he added fervently.
    The troll licked the coin, which gleamed liked a diamond in its hand. It actually did have grass growing under its fingernails, too, Polly noticed.
    Then Carborundum trudged to the bar. The crowd parted instantly, because a troll never had to stand at the back of the press of bodies, waving money and trying to catch the barman’s eye.
    He broke the coin in two and dropped both halves on the bar top.
    Eyebrow swallowed. He looked as though he would have said “Are you sure?” except that this was not a question barmen addressed to people weighing over half a ton.
    Carborundum thought for a while, and then said: “Gimme drink.”
    Eyebrow nodded, disappeared briefly into the room behind the bar, and came back holding a double-handed mug. Maladict sneezed. Polly’s eyes watered. It was the kind of smell you sense with your teeth. The pub might make foul beer as a matter of course, but this was eye-stinging vinegar.
    Eyebrow dropped one half of the silver coin into it, andthen took a copper penny out of the money drawer and held it over the fuming mug. The troll nodded. With just a hint of ceremony, like a cocktail waiter dropping the little umbrella into a Double Entendre, Eyebrow let the copper fall.
    More bubbles welled up. Igor watched with interest.
    Carborundum picked the mug up in two fingers of each shovel-like hand, and swallowed the contents in one gulp. He stood stock-still for a moment, then carefully put the mug back on the bar.
    “You gentlemen might like to move back a bit,” murmured Eyebrow.
    “What’s going to happen?” said Polly.
    “It takes ’em all differently,” said Eyebrow. “Looks like this one’s—no, there he goes—”
    With considerable style, Carborundum went over backwards. There was no sagging at the knees, no girlie attempt to soften the fall. He just went from standing up, one hand out, to lying down, one hand up. He even rocked gently for some time after hitting the floor.
    “Got no head for his drink,” said Eyebrow. “Typical of the young bucks. Wants to play the big troll, come in here, order an Electrick Floorbanger, doesn’t know how to handle it.”
    “Is he going to come around?” said Maladict.
    “No, that’s it until dawn, I reckon,” said Eyebrow. “Brain stops working.”
    “Shouldn’t affect him too much, then,” said Corporal Strappi, stepping up. “Right, you miserable lot. You’re sleeping in the shed out the back, understand? Practically waterproof, hardly any rats. We’re out of here at dawn! You’re in the army now!”
     
    Polly lay in the dark, on a bed of musty straw. There was no question of anyone getting undressed. The rain hammered on the roof and the wind blew through a crack under thedoor, despite Igor’s effort to stuff it with straw. There was some desultory conversation, during which Polly found that she was sharing the dank shed with “Tonker” Halter, “Shufti” Manickle, “Wazzer” Goom, and “Lofty” Tewt. Maladict and Igor didn’t seem to have acquired repeatable nicknames. She’d become Ozzer by general agreement.
    Slightly to Polly’s surprise, the boy now known as Wazzer had taken a small picture of the Duchess out of his pack and nervously hung it on an old nail. No one else said anything as he prayed to it. It was what you were supposed to do…
     
    They said the Duchess was dead…
    Polly had been washing up when she’d heard the men talking late one night, and it’s a poor woman who can’t eavesdrop while making a noise at the same time.
    Dead, they said, but the people up at Prince Marmaduke-Piotre Albert Hans Joseph Bernhardt Wilhelmsberg weren’t admitting it. That was ’cos what with there being no children, and