"It's a forest, corporal! And without bloody uniforms, how the hell will we know our friends from our enemies?"
Maladict lit a cigarette before he replied. "The way I see it, sarge," he said, "the enemy is everyone but us."
"Just one moment, sergeant," said Blouse, who had looked up from a newspaper and had been watching the apparition with considerable interest. "There are precedents in antiquity, you know. General Song Sung Lo moved his army disguised as a field of sunflowers, and General Tacticus once commanded a battalion to dress as spruces."
"Sunflowers?" said Jackrum, his voice oozing with disdain.
"Both actions were successful, sergeant."
"No uniforms? No badges? No stripes, sir?"
"Possibly you could be an extra large bloom?" said Blouse, and his face betrayed no hint of amusement. "And you have surely carried out actions at night, when all markings are invisible?"
"Yessir, but night is night, sir, while sunflowers is... is sunflowers, sir! I've worn this uniform for more'n fift - all my life, sir, and sneaking around without a uniform is downright dishonourable! It's for spies, sir!" Jackrum's face had gone beyond red into crimson, and Polly was amazed to see tears in the corners of his eyes.
"How can we be spies, sergeant, in our own country?" said Blouse calmly.
"The el-tee's got a point, sarge," said Maladict.
Jackrum turned like a bull at bay, and then to Polly's amazement he sagged. But she wasn't amazed for long. She knew the man. She didn't know why, but there was something about Jackrum that she could read. It was in the eyes. He could lie with eyes as honest and tranquil as those of an angel. And if he appeared to be backing away, it was indeed only to get a run-up later on.
"All right, all right," the sergeant said. "Upon my oath, I am not a man to disobey orders." And the eyes twinkled.
"Well done, sergeant," said Blouse.
Jackrum pulled himself together. "I don't want to be a sunflower, though," he said.
"Happily there are only fir trees in this area, sergeant."
"Point well made, sir." Jackrum turned to the awed squad. "All right, Last Detail," he bellowed. "You heard the man! Spruce up!"
It was an hour later. As far as Polly could tell, they'd started out for the mountains but had travelled in a wide semi-circle so that they ended up facing back the way they had come, but a few miles away. Was Blouse leading, or had he left it to Jackrum?
Neither man was complaining.
The lieutenant called a halt in a thicket of birch, thus doubling the size of the thicket. You could say that the camouflage effects were effective, because bright red and white shows up against greens and greys. Beyond that, though, language tended to run out.
Jade had scraped off her paint, and was green and grey anyway. Igorina looked like a walking brush. Wazzer quivered like an aspen all the time, so her leaves rustled permanently. The others had made more or less reasonable attempts, and Polly was pretty proud of her own efforts. Jackrum was about as tree-like as a big red rubber ball; Polly suspected that he'd surreptitiously shined up his brasswork, too. Every tree held a mug of tea in limb or hand. After all, they'd stopped for five minutes.
"Men," said Blouse, as if he'd only just reached that conclusion. "You may have gathered that we are heading back towards the mountains to raise a deserters' army there. This story is, in fact, a ruse for the benefit of Mr de Worde!" He paused, as if expecting some reaction. They stared at him. He went on: "We are, in fact, continuing our journey to the Kneck valley. This is the last thing the enemy will be expecting."
Polly glanced at the sergeant. He was grinning.
"It is an established fact that a small, light force can get into places that a battalion cannot penetrate," Blouse went on. "Men, we will be that force! Is that not right, Sergeant Jackrum?"
"Yessir!"
"We will come down like a hammer on those forces smaller than us," said Blouse happily.
"Yessir!"
"And from those that outnumber us, we will merge silently into the forest - "
"Yessir!"
"We will slip past their sentries - "
"That's right, sir," said Jackrum.