After a lot of men went West in this manner, an order was issued,
reading something like this:

"To all ranks in the British Army--after igniting the fuse and
before throwing the jam tin bomb, count slowly one! two! three!"

This in order to give the fuse time enough to burn down, so that the
bomb would explode before the Germans could throw it back.

Tommy read the order--he reads them all, but after he ignited the
fuse and it began to smoke, orders were forgotten, and away she went
in record time and back she came to the further discomfort of the
thrower.

Then another order was issued to count, "one hundred! two hundred!
three hundred!" but Tommy didn't care if the order read to count up to
a thousand by quarters he was going to get rid of that "jam tin,"
because from experience he had learned not to trust it.

When the powers that be realized that they could not change Tommy,
they decided to change the type of bomb and did so--substituting the
"hair brush," the "cricket-ball," and later the Mills bomb.

The standard bomb used in the British Army is the "Mills." It is about
the shape and size of a large lemon. Although not actually a lemon,
Fritz insists that it is; perhaps he judges it by the havoc caused by
its explosion. The Mills bomb is made of steel, the outside of which
is corrugated into forty-eight small squares which, upon the explosion
of the bomb, scatter in a wide area, wounding or killing any Fritz who
is unfortunate enough to be hit by one of the flying fragments.