Unconfirmed, but implied to be an unusual American military slang term for fuel ethanol. In particular, potable cane alchohol used to fuel modified vehicle engines or possibly purpose-built multifuel engines -- in places where war damage has reduced access to petroleum-based fuels. If genuine, the term may derive from the
work of hard laborers using blades to harvest sugar cane fields.
Term appears in a short fiction
story by
S. M. Sterling, entitled “
Lost Legion."