The final assault was to be countered by a massive wall of suicide bombers. The cause was lost, it was clear, but the glory was not, and an awful lot of dead enemies could be a heavenly consolation until the next uprising—in a generation, perhaps—could begin anew.
To be sure of every bomb going off, the jackets were rigged with a dead-man switch. Once armed, the martyrs would keep the trigger depressed with their thumbs until the moment of bliss, then simply let go. The leader used the phrase “let go” in a particulary poetic way. If any was shot before reaching his bliss, he would still blow up, hopefully killing soldiers and damaging equipment.
What ended up happening was tragic. The whole party of them went rushing in a single wave towards the entrenched troop of the enemy. The great wave shocked and took aback some few soldiers in the ranks, who shrank from their weapons and required active command of their legs to keep from fleeing. But several of the snipers, exhausted and determined, put their eyes to scopes and began picking off forward bombers.
And lo, but when the those were picked off from 500 meters away, they immediately exploded and took out twenty surrounding bombers, and displaced another thirty, whose fingers slipping off the triggers, themselves blew up. With three shots, the entire charge erupted in a chain reaction of gore. Twenty seconds was all it took for the rump of the resistance, going these fifteen years, to annihilate themselves.
Rushing onto the pock-marked ground in victory, shrapnel underfoot and smokeless powder residue burning their nostrils, they saw a clear way in to the White City, which they walked singing and with rifles slung.
Commenting is closed for this article.