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June 22 - June 24, 2020
“It’s a funny thing,” said the voice, “but they notice what’s missing more than they notice what’s there.
“Are you trying to be smart, Private Manickle?” Strappi demanded, naming the biggest sin in his personal list.
“Ankh-Morpork is a godawful city,” he said. “Poisonous, just like its river. Barely fit for humans now, they let everything in—zombies, werewolves, dwarfs, vampires, trolls—”
“I joined t’ see exciting forrin places and meet erotic people,” said Carborundum. That caused a moment’s thought. “I think you mean exotic?” said Igor. “Yeah, that kind of stuff,” agreed the troll.
To the casual observer, men’s clothes and short hair and a bit of swagger were what it took to be a man. Oh, and a second pair of socks.
“Oh, someone doesn’t like being called a lady, eh?” he said. “Dear me, Private Halter, you’ve got a lot to learn, haven’t you? You’re a sissy little lady until we make a man of you, right? And I dread to think how long that’s going to take. Move!” I know, thought Polly as they set off. It takes about ten seconds and a pair of socks. One sock, and you could make Strappi.
“The captain looks bad,” he said. “What did he try to do to poor little you?” “Patronize me,” said Polly, glaring at Maladict.
I think there’s no rule to stop me beating seven kinds of crap out of you until you tell me why you came here and when the rest of your mates are going to arrive. And that may take me some time, sir, because up until now I’ve only ever discovered five types of crap.” He rolled up his sleeves, hauled up the captain again, and drew back a fist—
d’you any of you know about newspapers?” “Yeth, my thecond couthin Igor in Ankh-Morpork told me about them,” said Igor. “They’re like a kind of government announcement.” “Um . . . sort of. Except they’re not written by the government. They’re written by ordinary people who write things down,” said Maladict. “Like a diary?” said Tonker. “Um . . . no . . .” Maladict tried to explain. The squad tried to understand. It still made no sense. It sounded to Polly like some kind of Punch and Judy show. Anyway, why would you trust anything written down? She certainly didn’t trust “Mothers of
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“Have you noticed men talk to you differently?” said Lofty shyly. “Talk?” said Polly. “They listen to you differently, too.” “They don’t keep looking at you all the time,” said Shufti. “You know what I mean. You’re just a . . . another person. If a girl walked down the street wearing a sword, a man would try to take it off her.”
People build something that works. Then circumstances change, and they have to tinker with it to make it continue to work, and they are so busy tinkering that they cannot see that a much better idea would be to build a whole new system to deal with the new circumstances. But to an outsider, the idea is obvious.”
“Would you agree that sometimes a country’s system is so out of date that it’s only the outsiders that can see the need for wholesale change?”
“Yeah, well, you’re at home with the writin’ and readin’,” grumbled Jackrum. “You can’t trust the people who do that stuff. They mess around with the world, and it turns out everything you know is wrong.”
“I suppose men are the same the world over,” said Polly. “On the inside, certainly.”
The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they’ve found it.
believe the phrase is ‘let us get the heck out of here.’” “Close, sir,” said Polly. “Quite . . . close.”
They turned at the sound of urgent praying. Wazzer had fallen to her knees, hands clasped together. The rest of the squad edged away slowly. Piety is a wonderful thing.
For some reason, Polly ended up patrolling with Maladict and Wazzer, or, to put it another way, a vampire on the edge and a girl who was possibly so far over it that she’d found a new edge out beyond the horizon.
And a woman by herself is missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master. Trousers. That’s the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: Idiots! Get yourself some trousers!
“There’s a song,” he said. “It starts ‘’Twas on a Monday morning, all in the month of May—’” “Then it is about sex,” said Polly flatly. “It’s a folk song, it starts with ‘’twas,’ it takes place in May, QED, it’s about sex. Is a milkmaid involved? I bet she is.” “There could be,” Jackrum conceded. “Going for to market? For to sell her wares?” said Polly. “Very likely.” “O-kay. That gives us the cheese. And she meets, let’s see, a soldier, a sailor, a jolly ploughboy, or just possibly a man clothéd all in leather, I expect? No, since it’s about us, it’s a soldier, right? And since it’s one of
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“Size isn’t important, Polly.” “No one believes that.
“From your fear . . . They come from the part that hates the Other, that will not change. They come from the sum of all your pettiness and stupidity and dullness. You fear tomorrow, and you’ve made your fear your god.
“In fact, I think your other idea would be better, sir,” said Polly hurriedly. “Yes . . . my, er . . . other idea . . . which one was that, exactly?” “The one where we escape from the washhouse via the clothes-drying area, sir, after silently disabling three guards, sir. There’s a kind of moving room down the corridor, sir, which gets winched all the way to the roof. Two guards go up there with the women, sir, and there’s another guard up on the roof. Acting together, we’d take out each unsuspecting guard, which would be more certain than you against an armed man, with all due respect, sir,
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If you don’t believe, or want to believe, or if you don’t simply hope that there’s something worth believing in, why turn round? And if you don’t believe, who are you trusting to lead you out of the grip of dead men?
“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.”
“The last man out stuck his thumb up and winked,” said Polly. “Did you notice him? He wasn’t even wearing an officer’s uniform.” “Probably wanted a date,” said Tonker. “In Ankh-Morpork that means ‘jolly good,’” said Blouse. “In Klatch, I think, it means ‘I hope your donkey explodes.’
hope this isn’t going to be our famous last stand,” he said. “In fact, sir,” said Polly. “I think it’s going to be our first. Permission to yell in a bloodcurdling way, sir?” “Permission granted, Perks!”
“We stick together,” said Polly. “We don’t leave a man behind.”
“Funny thing, really,” she said, at last. “What’s that, Perks?” “Finding out that it’s not about you. You think you’re the hero, and it turns out you’re really part of someone else’s story.
whatever it is you are going to do next, do it as you. Good or bad, do it as you. Too many lies and there’s no truth to go back to.”
When they’re laughing at you, their guard is down. When their guard is down, you can kick them in the fracas.
The enemy wasn’t men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin’ stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.
And the new day was a great big fish.
