Chapter 1.06
The next training was Grenade Practice.
I stumbled to the field where it was held, Belle at my side, pretending she was the terminator, and crazily shooting a machine gun. I was giggling uncontrollably and people were looking at us like we had problems. Belle gave them a sheepish grin, and continued talking. When we got there a tall, middle aged man stood. He had only one arm, which made me ask myself;
Do all instructors have some kind of life threatening injury?
He introduced himself as Scott.
“Now you youngsters better listen carefully, otherwise you’ll end up like me,” He patted the stump of his arm. “See this? I didn’t get this in war. No, I lost my arm while I was teaching some youngsters just like you. I lost my arm, the girl lost her life.”
He talked a bit more about the girl, how old she was, all that kind of stuff, then moved onto more accidents.
“One time two boys were mucking around, like boys do. They decided they’d try throwing a grenade in the air, expecting it to explode mid-air. I had told them these grenades only blew up when they hit the ground, but either they weren’t listening or just thinking their grenade would be special. They threw it up, but it didn’t explode. It did however, when it hit the boy who’d thrown it on the head One of them lost their hearing, the other, the one who threw it, died. His head was blown up.” Scott paused for a while and waited for everyone to stop murmuring uneasily. “I don’t want any accidents happening today, so please, I’d love it if you could be careful.”
Scott went on, and told us how to activate the grenades, and how to be safe after doing so. You had to throw the grenade as far as possible, and not check out the damage until the grenade had actually blown up. Then we were sent off to practice. Belle and I grabbed a grenade each, activated them, and threw them in opposite directions, after checking nobody would come into contact.
After doing this a few more times we decided we’d try to throw them at the same time in the same spot. It wasn’t unreasonable, or anymore harmful than throwing a single grenade - unless they hit someone - so nobody could really tell us we shouldn’t. We found a spot and marked it with another, not yet activated grenade.
“On the count of three,” I told Belle. She nodded eagerly. “One, Two, Three!”
We thew our grenades at the same spot, and even though they didn’t quite hit the ground at the same time, they caused a massive explosion. To top that off, the gun powder in the other, unactivated grenade must’ve had a reaction, because it went off too. Everybody turned to see what had caused the bigger explosion. All they got to see was Belle and I, hooting and laughing. They rolled their eyes and went back to their own throwing.
Belle and I tried a few more experiments - taping two grenades together, then four, blowing up a box, blowing up two dummies at the same time, all that kind of stuff.
Then it was time for lunch.