Jingo

as Corporal Nobbs.
    “Constable Visit’s pretty brown,” said Nobby. “I never seen him run away. If there’s a chance of giving someone a religious pamphlet ole Washpot’s after them like a terrier.”
    “Ah, but Omnians are more like us,” said Colon. “Bit weird but, basic’ly, just the same as us underneath. No, the way you can tell a Klatchian is, you look an’ see if he uses a lot of words beginning with ‘al,’ right? ’Cos that’s a dead giveaway. They invented all the words starting with ‘al.’ That’s how you can tell they’re Klatchian. Like al-cohol, see?”
    “They invented beer?”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s clever.”
    “I wouldn’t call it clever ,” said Sergeant Colon, realizing too late that he’d made a tactical error. “More, luck, I’d say.”
    “What else did they do?”
    “Well, there’s…” Colon racked his brains. “There’s al-gebra. That’s like sums with letters. For…for people whose brains aren’t clever enough for numbers, see?”
    “Is that a fact?”
    “Right,” said Colon. “In fact,” he went on, a little more assertively now he could see a way ahead, “I heard this wizard down the University say that the Klatchians invented nothing. That was their great contribution to maffs, he said. I said ‘What?’ an’ he said, they come up with zero.”
    “Dun’t sound that clever to me,” said Nobby. “Anyone could invent nothing. I ain’t invented anything.”
    “My point exactly,” said Colon. “I told him, it was people who invented numbers like four and, and—”
    “—seven—”
    “—right, who were the geniuses. Nothing didn’t need inventing. It was just there. They probably just found it.”
    “It’s having all that desert,” said Nobby.
    “Right! Good point. Desert. Which, as everyone knows, is basically nothing. Nothing’s a natural resource to them. It stands to reason. Whereas we’re more civilized, see, and we got a lot more stuff around to count, so we invented numbers. It’s like…well, they say the Klatchians invented astronomy—”
    “Al-tronomy,” said Nobby helpfully.
    “No, no…no, Nobby, I reckon they’d discovered esses by then, probably nicked ’em off’f us…anyway, they were bound to invent astronomy, ’cos there’s bugger all else for them to look at but the sky. Anyone can look at the stars and give ’em names. ’s going it a bit to call it inventing , in any case. We don’t go around saying we’ve invented something just because we had a quick dekko at it.”
    “I heard where they’ve got a lot of odd gods,” said Nobby.
    “Yeah, and mad priests,” said Colon. “Foaming at the mouth, half of ’em. Believe all kinds of loony things.”
    They watched the painter in silence for a moment. Colon was dreading the question that came.
    “So how exactly are they different from ours, then?” said Nobby. “I mean, some of our priests are—”
    “I hope you ain’t being unpatriotic ,” said Colon severely.
    “No, of course not. I was just asking. I can see where they’d be a lot worse than ours, being foreign and everything.”
    “And of course they’re all mad for fighting,” said Colon. “Vicious buggers with all those curvy swords of theirs.”
    “You mean, like…they viciously attack you while cowardly running away after tasting cold steel?” said Nobby, who sometimes had a treacherously good memory for detail.
    “You can’t trust ’em, like I said. And they burp hugely after meals.”
    “Well…so do you, sarge.”
    “Yes, but I don’t pretend it’s polite , Nobby.”
    “Well, it’s certainly a good job there’s you around to explain things, sarge,” said Nobby. “It’s amazing the stuff you know.”
    “I surprise myself, sometimes,” said Colon modestly.
    The painter of the ship leaned back to admire his work. They heard him give a heartfelt little groan, and both of them nodded in satisfaction.

    Hostage negotiations were always tricky, Carrot had learned. It paid not to rush things. Let the other man talk when he was ready.
    So he was whiling away the time sitting behind the upturned cart they were using as a shield from the occasional random arrow and writing his letter home. The exercise was carried out with much frowning, sucking of the pencil and what Commander Vimes called a ballistic approach to spelling and punctuation.
Dere Mum and Dade,
I hope this letter finds you in good health as I am also. Thank you for the big parcel of dwarf bread you