Sentence:  It was my initiation to war and the insane symphony war plays ; for what had happened on the common was only terror and flight ; but this grinning , broken head , not ten <WSD>feet</WSD> away from me , was the sharp definition of what my reality had become . 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  a linear unit of length equal to 12 inches or a third of a yard