Jingo

58

A direct quote from Tennyson's poem Sir Galahad:

My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.

59

There's a pub in Bath called “The Saracen's Head”, which supposedly has a similarly colourful history.

60

‘Veni vidi vici’ (‘I came, I saw, I conquered’) is a quotation attributed to Julius Caesar, one of several great generals who contributed to the composite figure of Tacticus.

There are similarities between Tacticus' book, as expounded later in Jingo, and The Art of War by the Chinese general Sun Tzu.

61

General Patton, addressing his troops in 1942: “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

62

From the beginning of every episode of the television series Mission: Impossible.

63

Historically, the tusk of the narwhal has sometimes been taken for that of a unicorn.

64

Das Boot (The Boat) was an epic German film, made by Wolfgang Petersen in 1981, telling the story of a German submarine in 1941.

65

Said of the neutron bomb, which delivers a very heavy dose of radiation but relatively small explosive power or fallout. Mind you, it could fairly be said of most crossbows.

66

An inconsistency alert: earlier Carrot told Vimes that Blind Hugh had ‘passed away last month’.

67

The first working submarine was a one-man, hand-propelled vessel called the Turtle, designed to use an auger to attach explosive charges to the hulls of enemy ships, the enemy in this case being the British during the American War of Independence. The Turtle attacked HMS Eagle in New York Harbor on 6 September 1776, but the hull was lined with copper and the screw failed to pierce it.

68

This has several parallels in our own world, most notably the Sioux, who adopted that name from their neighbours and habitual enemies the Ojibwa.

69

The description matches St Elmo's Fire, a corona discharge of static electricity sometimes seen on highly exposed surfaces (such as ships) during thunderstorms. In our world, it's supposed to be a good omen. For more on St Ungulant, see Small Gods.

70

According to the Bible, the prophet Jonah did much the same (Jonah 1:17).