“But that four-leafed clover hadn't brought any luck either to this soldier or to me. He was a man, too, like me, or like Mr. Hubicka, like us he hadn't any distinction or rank, and yet we had shot each other and brought each other to death, although surely if we could have met somewhere in civil life we might well have liked each other, and found a lot to talk about.

And then the explosion rang out. And I, who only a little while before had been looking forward to the sight, lay there beside the German soldier, stretched out my hand and opened his stiffening fingers, and put into them the green four-leaved clover that brings luck, while from somewhere away there in the countryside a mushroom cloud soared into the sky, endlessly expanding into greater heights and vaster smoky masses. I heard the pressure of the air rush across the countryside and hiss and whistle through the bare branches of the trees and bushes, I heard it rattle the transfer chains on the signal, and lean on the arm and shake it; but I lay coughing, and felt my blood draining out of me.

To the last moment, before I began to lose the awareness of myself, I held this dead man by the hand, and for his unhearing ears I repeated the words of the chief of that mail train which had brought those wretched Germans from Dresden:

'You should have sat at home on your arse...”