When they allowed the jib to fill, even that was enough to send the boat over, and she had already a dangerous lot of water surging among the ballast; while, when they were forced to put her head to the wind, she drifted with a heavily running tide, and right to leeward was a long reef of rocks that would inevitably crunch her into matchwood.
"The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols"
William Black
It had broken hundreds of rifles into matchwood, and flung up the kit of men from deep dug-outs, littering earth with their pouches and helmets and bits of clothing.
"From Bapaume to Passchendaele, 1917"
Philip Gibbs
The danger was two-fold, for we knew our hospital, which was a cardboard sort of thing, would ignite like matchwood, and if it fell we should not be able to get out of the cellars.
"My War Experiences in Two Continents"
Sarah Macnaughtan