" I also recall how superstitious we were when it came to lighting a cigarette. No one ever took a light if two others took it before. The superstition dated back to the Great War ; our fathers believed that the man who took the third light would be killed. Supposedly, it took the enemy soldier that long to line up the sights of his rifle in the dark, so that the first two to take a light would be unharmed, but the third would be shot."

From "The good soldier" by Alfred Novotny

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