Monstrous Regiment
Categories: [ Books/Discworld ]
Borogravia is a small country in the mountains, permanently at war with its neighbours. Nuggan, the local god is obviously mad, creating more and more random Abominations, while the people try to abide by them. Moreover, the ruler of the country is the Duchess, whom nobody has seen since the Duke died, and to whom most people are actually praying. This time, Borogravia is at war with a coalition of several neighbours, plus representatives of Ankh-Morpork, because the clacks have been taken down by the war. Polly, a young girl, decides to go search for her brother who enlisted in the army a year earlier and hasn't given any news since. Polly, disguised as a boy, enlists too with a handfull of other boys (who all happen to be girls, including the troll, the vampire and the Igor, who are looking for a boy or trying to flee from their previous life). They are marched under the guidance of Seargent Jackrum (who has been in every previous war) and Lieutenant Blouse (who doesn't know anything about war) toward the Keep of the Kneck, headquarters of the army, which is currently under the control of the ennemy and surrounded by what is left of the Borogravian army. They soon learn that they are the last group of reinforcement, and, although it is forbidden to say so, that the war is already lost. But when they arrive at the Keep, the Lieutenant decides to invade the keep disguised as a washerwoman, and, on the next day, the girls follow him. They find Blouse, who hadn't been captured after all, and eventually manage to free all the borogravian prisoners, who retake most of the Keep. But the army is not ready to admit that they had been saved by a bunch of girls, until Seargent Jackrum (who has saved the lives of most of the top brass at one point or another of his career) reveals that a third of the army's staff is made of women in disguise (and Jackrum is, by the way, a woman too).