THE TWELFTH
‘Chuck it! Chuck it, stupid!’ shouted the other grunts in the trench.
‘Throw it away! Throw it away!’ bawled the officer from the carrier turret, and the little soldier on the front line dutifully braced his hands to tear the pin out of the grenade. Then, he raised his tommy gun, with the bayonet, before his face with his left hand, stretching his right behind him, so that he could chuck that goddamn tin can as far away as he could before falling flat on the ground. But that last bit wasn’t to happen. The soldiers in the trench and the officer in the turret saw how his right hand, stretched backwards, suddenly burst with a bright flash, the horrid power of which lifted the soldier high above the front line. At just such a camber, with such a sweeping stroke, with his gun and
