MINE WARFARE
Among the other things we took over from the outgoing battalion when we
first moved into this position was the care and continuance of a mine,
and this mine was to form our chief worry as long as we held that line.
At first we were inclined to regard the mining officers--of which we had
two--as a sort of nuisance like engineers, trench mortar men, and some
others, who were always demanding men for carrying and working parties.
But we were not long in finding that they were, like ourselves,
necessary evils, and they became welcome guests at our little mess when
in the trench.
Whenever the trenches approach as close as they did at this point mine
warfare becomes inevitable, and it is a game at which it is best to be
first.
To defend a position against this method of attack one commences a
counter-mine at a depth sufficient to take the gallery or tunnel
underneath the enemy's one, which, once it is located, is blown in
before they manage to get under the defenders' trench. The tunnel or
gallery is barely large enough for a man to crawl along on his hands and
knees, and must be boarded foot by foot as it progresses to prevent it
from collapsing.
In this cramped position the sapper wields his pick, a peculiar affair
not unlike a harpoon, and scrapes the loosened earth back with a short
grubber to another man who removes the earth in sandbags.
Progress under such circumstances must be slow, but it is made slower by
the necessity of running galleries at right angles to the main tunnel
from time to time in an effort to locate the enemy.
Here men are posted, while all work is for a time stopped, to listen for
the first sounds of the enemy's sappers--the thud-thud of the picks or
the "cough" of the man whose lungs seek this relief in the stuffy air of
the cramped tunnel.
If the enemy is not found, progress is continued forward from both ends
of the cross-gallery and the game goes merrily on.
About this stage the mining officer will, if you happen to be holding
the trench under which he is grovelling, wax eloquent over a crumpled
sheet of tracing linen that he presents to your view as a diagram of the
workings. It looks like nothing so much as a drawing of the kith and kin
of an old and prolific family; but you dare not tell him that, or he
will be your enemy for life.
Instead you should say, "Ahem!" and "Oh, yes; how clever!"--then he will
ask you for only ten instead of twelve men on the night's working party.
But once the enemy is located you begin to regard him more seriously,
for on his skill depends the life of every man in the trench above, and
a false change in direction may mean missing the enemy's tunnel
altogether.
Sometimes, but not often, the mining is so quietly done that the first
sign of the enemy is the sudden collapse of the wall of earth between
the two galleries, leaving the rival workers face to face!
At other times, and this is a normal occurrence, the enemy are heard to
one side or the other, and a small charge of powder is laid and his
gallery is blown in, crushing his workers to death, or perhaps merely
burying them to perish miserably by suffocation.
To prevent this occurring men are kept in the ends of all the passages
listening for the tap-tap of the picks that spells danger!
If the picks are heard for a while and then stop, there are anxious
moments, for it may mean that the enemy has located our workers and
decided to blow first and wreck our galleries, or it may mean the
explosive is already in place and ready for firing, or perhaps only a
change in the direction of the enemy's tunnel.
The situation is not a pleasant one for either the men in the trench
above or the sappers in the galleries below, and on the mining officer's
decision much depends.
It was while we were breakfasting one morning that the corporal in
charge of the underground sentries reported that the enemy could be
heard working in No.--gallery.
This was the third time since taking over the mine that tapping had been
reported, and both the preceding times had proved to be the result of
overstrained imaginations. Captain H----, our skipper, had on both
occasions descended to the bowels of the earth and listened patiently
for half an hour, emerging again disgusted with things in general.
This time he motioned to the writer to accompany the corporal, and
together we made our way to the mine, shedding our jackets and belts at
the head of the shaft, and taking only our electric pocket lamps we
crawled along the muddy galleries to No.--.
The noise had stopped, the listener whispered to us when we touched him
gently on the leg, so we lay there all three listening for it to start
again, the tick-ticking of our wrist-watches and the pulsing of our
hearts sounding loud to our strained ears.
Three--five--seven minutes passed by without a sound, and then suddenly
there came a slight thud.
The man in front of me stiffened slightly like a well-trained setter and
the corporal behind me pinched my leg in the height of his exultation.
The thud-thud continued (there was no mistaking it now), then a
pause--and a voice, distinctly guttural, was heard, and a sound, easily
distinguishable from the muffled reports of the rifles some thirty feet
overhead--the scraping of a shovel on the wooden floor of a gallery not
more than eight feet away!
Passing the sentry a revolver and torch, we blew out his candle and
crept away as noiselessly as we had come.
On reaching the head of the shaft we met the mining officer, who crawled
down and returned to confirm our judgment.
Then followed some mysterious telephoning to the "higher authority"
while a charge was hastily laid, and permission was at last secured to
"blow" the mine.
No time was lost, and in half an hour all was ready, the mining officer
returning from his final inspection with the news that the enemy was
still digging blissfully away.
Remembering the mine at Givenchy, we cleared the trench in the danger
zone and had this party "stand by to repel boarders" and, if necessary,
man the crater.
At 2.30 the mine was fired.
A fountain of earth roared upwards from "No Man's Land," and, armed to
the teeth with bombs, we rushed forward, losing a couple of men on the
way who had been struck by the falling _debris_, and manned our trench
while machine-guns raked the enemy's parapets.
However, he showed no inclination to man the crater--a yawning pit some
forty feet in width half-way over to his trench--and contented himself
with throwing a few bombs into it and covering it with machine-gun
fire. In spite of which Begbie Lyte, having now risen to the dizzy
height of senior subaltern in the company, took out a small party and
filled it with barbed wire.
The affair was only briefly mentioned in the _communiques_: "On the 22nd
a mine was exploded under a German gallery on our front. An enemy mining
party is believed to have been blown up."
The mining officer was greatly pleased, however, as only some few yards
of his own gallery had suffered.