Men at Arms (Discworld 15)

'Then what was that about?'

'Search me.' Nobby scratched a promising boil. 'P'raps he meant a false nose. You know. Those red ones on elastic? The ones,' said Nobby, grimacing, 'they think are funny. He didn't have one.'

Colon rapped on the door, taking care to stand out of the way of any jolly amusing booby traps.

The hatch slid aside.

'Yes?' hissed Boffo.

'Did you mean his false nose?' said Colon.

'His real one! Now bugger off!'

The hatch snapped back.

'Mental,' said Nobby, firmly.

'Beano had a real nose. Did it look wrong to you?' said Colon.

'No. It had a couple of holes in it.'

'Well, I don't know about noses,' said Colon, 'but either Brother Boffo is dead wrong or there's something fishy going on.'

'Like what?'

'Well, Nobby, you're what I might call a career soldier, right?'

' 'S'right, Fred.'

'How many dishonourable discharges have you had?'

'Lots,' said Nobby, proudly. 'But I always puts a poultice on 'em.'

'You've been on a lot of battlefields, ain't you?'

'Dozens.'

Sergeant Colon nodded.

'So you've seen a lot of corpses, right, when you've been ministering to the fallen—'

Corporal Nobbs nodded. They both knew that 'ministering' meant harvesting any personal jewellery and stealing their boots. In many a faraway battlefield the last thing many a mortally wounded foeman ever saw was Corporal Nobbs heading towards him with a sack, a knife and a calculating expression.

'Shame to let good stuff go to waste,' said Nobby.

'So you've noticed how dead bodies get. . . deader,' said Sergeant Colon.

'Deader than dead?'

'You know. More corpsey,' said Sergeant Colon, forensic expert.

'Goin' stiff and purple and suchlike?'

'Right.'

'And then sort of manky and runny . . .'

'Yes, all right—'