How to understand the last sentence? Three dozen dogs were leashed to stakes hammered onto a frozen plain. As the yellow cloud rolled towards them the animals howled in terror, straining against their leads. When it enveloped them a pitiful wail fi lled the hollow of the sky. Clara Haber seized her husband’s hand, digging her nails through her gloves and into his skin. Within a minute both gas and sound dissipated, and the corpses of the dead animals lay on the slashed earth, the heat of their bodies melting the surrounding snow. Haber checked both his shock at the speed of death, and his euphoria for the ghastly triumph.