the words grated slowly from a place inside jack that seemed like a twilight graveyard , a place without warmth , an endless plain of autumn grass marked with gray stones that noted the passing of earl , of blythe , of archibald holmes , of all the young men he knew in the 5th division , all those who died at the rapido crossing , little stick figures scattered like so many handfuls of dust beneath the pounding guns of cassino ... jack stood up and threw the cigarette away .