"Yes?" she quavered, and then cleared her throat and demanded, with a little more gruffness: "Yes?"
"You'll need these," whispered the voice. In the fetid gloom she made out something rising over the top of a cubicle. She reached up nervously and touched softness. It was a bundle of wool. Her fingers explored it.
"A pair of socks?" she said.
"Right. Wear 'em," said the mystery voice hoarsely.
"Thank you, but I've brought several pairs..." Polly began.
There was a faint sigh. "No. Not on your feet. Shove 'em down the front of your trousers."
"What do you mean?"
"Look," said the whisperer patiently, "you don't bulge where you shouldn't bulge. That's good. But you don't bulge where you should bulge, either. You know? Lower down?"
"Oh! Er... I... but... I didn't think people noticed..." said Polly, glowing with embarrassment. She'd been spotted! But there was no hue and cry, no angry quotations from the Book of Nuggan. Someone was helping. Someone who had seen her...
"It's a funny thing," said the voice, "but they notice what's missing more than they notice what's there. Just one pair, mark you. Don't get ambitious."
Polly hesitated. "Um... is it obvious?" she said.
"No. That's why I gave you the socks."
"I meant that... that I'm not... that I'm..."
"Not really," said the voice in the dark. "You're pretty good. You come over as a frightened young lad trying to look big and brave. You might pick your nose a bit more often. Just a tip. Few things interest a young man more than the contents of his nostrils. Now I've got a favour to ask you in return."
I didn't ask you for one, Polly thought, quite annoyed at being taken for being a frightened young lad when she was sure she'd come over as quite a cool, non-ruffled young lad. But she said calmly: "What is it?"
"Got any paper?"
Wordlessly, Polly pulled "From the Mothers of Borogravia!!" out of her shirt and handed it up. She heard the sound of a match striking, and a sulphurous smell which only improved the general conditions.
"Why, is this the escutcheon of her grace the Duchess I see in front of me?" said the whisperer. "Well, it won't be in front of me for long. Beat it... boy."
Polly hurried out into the night, shocked, dazed, confused and almost asphyxiated, and made it to the shed door. But she'd barely shut it behind her and was still blinking in the blackness when it was thrust open again, to let in the wind, rain and Corporal Strappi.
"All right, all right! Hands off... well, you lot wouldn't be able to find 'em... and on with socks! Hup hup hi ho hup hup..."
Bodies were suddenly springing up or falling over all round Polly. Their muscles must have been obeying the voice directly, because no brain could have got into gear that quickly. Corporal Strappi, in obedience to the law of non-commissioned officers, responded by making the confusion more confusing.
"Good grief, a lot of old women could shift better'n you!" he shouted with satisfaction as people flailed around looking for coats and boots. "Fall in! Get shaved! Every man in the regiment to be clean shaven, by order! Get dressed! Wazzer, I've got my eye on you! Move! Move! Breakfast in five minutes! Last one there doesn't get a sausage! Oh deary me, what a bloody shower!"
The four lesser horsemen of Panic, Bewilderment, Ignorance and Shouting took control of the room, to Corporal Strappi's obscene glee. Polly, though, ducked out of the door, pulled a small tin mug out of her pack, dipped it into a water butt, balanced it on an old barrel behind the inn, and started to shave.
She'd practised this, too. The secret was in the old cut-throat razor that she'd carefully blunted. After that, it was all in the shaving brush and soap. Get a lot of lather on, shave a lot of lather off, and you'd had a shave, hadn't you? Must have done, sir, feel how smooth the skin is...
She was halfway through when a voice by her ear screamed: "What d'you think you're doing, Private Parts?"
It was just as well the blade was blunt.
"Perks, sir!" she said, rubbing her nose. "I'm shaving, sir! It's Perks, sir!"
"Sir? Sir? I'm not a sir, Parts, I'm a bloody corporal, Parts. That means you calls me 'corporal', Parts. And you are shaving in an official regimental mug, Parts, what you have not been issued with, right? You a deserter, Parts?"
"No, s¨C corporal!"
"A thief, then?"