GR translation: Ordnance smoke-puffs flicker on nearly every sleeve.

Mike Jing gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
Fri May 17 04:03:54 CDT 2013


P309.31-39  Final assembly went on in Stollen 41. The cross-tunnel is 50
feet deep, to accommodate the finished Rocket. Sounds of carousing, of
voices distinctly unbalanced, come welling up, reverberating off of the
concrete. Personnel are weaving back up the main tunnel with a glassy and
rubicund look to their faces. Slothrop squints down into this long pit, and
makes out a crowd of Americans and Russians gathered around a huge oak beer
barrel. A gnome-size German civilian with a red von Hindenburg mustache is
dispensing steins of what looks to be mostly head. Ordnance smoke-puffs
flicker on nearly every sleeve.

I assume the "smoke-puffs" refer to some kind of insignia of the US Army
Ordnance Corps.  Although I can't find one with puff of smoke on it.  It's
more of a flame than smoke.  Is this army slang?  Poetic licence? Or am I
assuming wrong again?
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