THE MINE

'_. . . a mine was successfully exploded under a section of the enemy's

trench. . . ._'--ACTUAL EXTRACT FROM AN OFFICIAL DESPATCH.

Work on the sap-head had been commenced on what the Captain of the

Sappers called 'a beautiful night,' and what anyone else outside a

lunatic asylum would have described with the strongest adjectives

available in exactly the opposite sense. A piercing wind was blowing

in gusts of driving sleet and rain, it was pitch dark--'black as the

inside of a cow,' as the Corporal put it--and it was bitterly cold.

But, since all these conditions are exactly those most calculated to

make difficult the work of an enemy's sentries and look-outs, and the

first work of sinking a shaft is one which it is highly desirable

should be unobserved by an enemy, the Sapper Captain's satisfaction may

be understood.

The sap-head was situated amongst the ruins of a cottage a few yards

behind the forward firing trench, and by the time a wet daylight had

dawned the Sappers had dug themselves well underground, had securely

planked up the walls of the shaft, and had cut a connecting gallery

from the ruins to the communication trench. All this meant that their

work was fairly free from observation, and the workers reasonably safe

from bombs and bullets, so that the officer in charge had good cause

for the satisfaction with which he made his first report.

His first part of the work had been a matter of plans and maps, of

compass and level, of observing the ground--incidentally dodging the

bullets of the German snipers who caught glimpses of his crawling

form--by day, and of intricate and exact figuring and calculating by

night, in the grimy cellar of another ruined house by the light of a

candle, stuck in an empty bottle.

Thereafter he spent all his waking hours (and many of his sleeping ones

as well) in a thick suit of clayey mud; he lived like a mole in his

mine gallery or his underground cellar, saw the light only when he

emerged to pass from his work to his sleep or meals, and back to his

work, and generally gave himself, his whole body and brain and being,

to the correct driving of a shallow burrow straight to the selected

point under the enemy trench a hundred and odd yards away. He was a

youngish man, and this was the first job of any importance that had

been wholly and solely entrusted to him. It was not only his anxiety

to make a creditable showing, but he was keen on the work for the

work's own sake, and he revelled in the creative sense of the true

artist. The mine was his. He had first suggested it, he had surveyed

it, and plotted it, and measured and planned and worked it out on

paper; and now, when it came to the actual pick-and-shovel work, he

supervised and directed and watched each hour of work, and each yard of

progress.

It was tricky work, too, and troublesome. At first the ground was good

stiff clay that the spades bit out in clean mouthfuls, and that left a

fair firm wall behind. But that streak ran out in the second day's

working, and the mine burrowed into some horrible soft crumbly soil

that had to be held up and back by roof and wall of planking. The

Subaltern took a party himself and looted the wrecks of houses--there

was no lack of these in the village just behind the lines--of

roof-beams and flooring, and measured and marked them for sawing into

lengths, and would have taken a saw with pleasure himself.

Then he dived cheerfully into the oozing wet burrow and superintended

the shoring up, and re-started the men to digging, and emerged a moment

to see more planking passed down. He came in fact dangerously near to

making a nuisance of himself, and some of his men who had been sapping

and mining for wet and weary months past were inclined to resent quite

so much fussing round and superintendence. But the Corporal put that

right. He was an elderly man with a nasty turn of temper that had got

him into almost as many troubles in his service as his knowledge,

experience, and aptitude for hard work and responsibility had got him

out of.

'Leave the lad be,' he had said when some of the party had passed

grumbling remarks about 'too bloomin' much fuss an' feathers over a

straight simple bloomin' job.' The Corporal had promptly squashed that

opinion. 'Leave the lad be,' he said. 'He's young to the job, mebbe,

but he's not such a simple fool as some that take this for a simple

job. It's not goin' to be all that simple, as you'll find before

you're done.'

He was right, too. The crumbling soil was one little difficulty

promptly and easily met. The next was more troublesome. The soil grew

wetter and more wet until at last the men were working ankle deep in

water. The further the mine went the wetter it became. The men worked

on, taking their turn at the narrow face, shovelling out the wet muck

and dragging it back to the shaft and up and out and away by the

communication trench. They squeezed aside in silence when the

Subaltern pushed in to inspect the working, and waited with side winks

to one another to see what he would do to overcome the water

difficulty. 'Pumps' would of course have been the simple answer, but

the men knew as well as the Subaltern knew that pumps were not to be

had at that particular time and place for love or money, and that all

the filling of all the 'indents' in the R.E. would not produce one

single efficient pump from store.

The Subaltern did not trouble with indent forms or stores. He had had

something of a fight to get a grudging permission for his mine, and he

felt it in his bones that if he worried the big chiefs too much with

requisitions he would be told to abandon the mine. He shut his teeth

tight at the thought. It was his mine and he was going to see it

through, if he had to bale the water out with a tea-cup.

He made a quick cast through the shell-wrecked village, drew blank, sat

for fifteen minutes on the curb of a rubble-choked well and thought

hard, jumped up and called the Corporal to provide him with four men

and some odd tools, and struck back across muddy and shell-cratered

fields to the nearest farm. The farmer, who had remained in possession

despite the daily proximity of bursting shells, a shrapnel-smashed tile

roof, and a gaping hole where one house-corner should have been, made

some objection to the commandeering of his old-fashioned farm pump. He

was at first supported in this by the officer in charge of the men

billeted in the barn and sheds, but the Sapper explained the urgency of

his need and cunningly clinched the argument by reminding the Infantry

officer that probably he and his men would soon be installed in the

trenches from which the mine ran, and that he--the Sapper--although he

was not supposed to mention it, might just hint that his mine was only

hurrying to forestall an enemy mine which was judged to be approaching

the trench the Infantry officer would presently occupy. This last was

a sheer invention of the moment, but it served excellently, and the

Sapper and his party bore off their pump in triumph. It was later

erected in the mine shaft, and the difficulty of providing sufficient

piping to run from the pump to the waterlogged part of the mine was met

by a midnight visit to the house where Headquarters abode and the

wholesale removal of gutters and rain-pipes. As Headquarters had its

principal residence in a commodious and cobwebby cellar, the absence of

the gutters fortunately passed without remark, and the sentry who

watched the looting and the sergeant to whom he reported it were quite

satisfied by the presence of an Engineer officer and his calm assurance

that it was 'all right--orders--an Engineers' job.'

The pump did its work excellently, and a steady stream of muddy water

gushed from its nozzle and flowed down the Headquarters gutter-pipes to

a selected spot well behind the trenches. Unfortunately the pump,

being old-fashioned, was somewhat noisy, and all the packing and oiling

and tinkering failed to silence its clank-clink, clank-clink, as its

arm rose and fell.

The nearest German trench caught the clank-clink, and by a simple

process of deduction and elimination arrived at its meaning and its

location. The pump and the pumpers led a troubled life after that.

Snipers kept an unsteady but never silent series of bullets smacking

into the stones of the ruin, whistling over the communication trench,

and 'whupp'-ing into the mud around both. A light gun took a hand and

plumped a number of rounds each day into the crumbling walls and

rubbish-heaps of stone and brick, and burst shrapnel all over the lot.

The Sappers dodged the snipers by keeping tight and close to cover;

they frustrated the direct-hitting 'Fizz-Bang' shells by a stout

barricade of many thicknesses of sandbags bolstering up the fragment of

wall that hid their shaft and pump, and finally they erected a low roof

over the works and sandbagged that secure against the shrapnel. There

were casualties of course, but these are always in the way of business

with the Sappers and came as a matter of course. The Germans brought

up a trench-mortar next and flung noisy and nerve-wrecking

high-explosive bombs into and all round the ruin, bursting down all the

remaining walls except the sandbagged one and scoring a few more

casualties until the forward trench installed a trench-mortar of their

own, and by a generous return of two bombs to the enemy's one put the

German out of action. A big _minnenwerfer_ came into play next, and

because it could throw a murderous-sized bomb from far behind the

German trench it was too much for the British trench-mortar to tackle.

This brought the gunners into the game, and the harassed infantry (who

were coming to look on the Sapper Subaltern and his works as an

unmitigated nuisance and a most undesirable acquaintance who drew more

than a fair share of enemy fire on them) appealed to the guns to rid

them of their latest tormentor. An Artillery Observing Officer spent a

perilous hour or two amongst the shrapnel and snipers' bullets on top

of the sandbagged wall, until he had located the _minnenwerfer_. Then

about two minutes' telephoned talk to the Battery and ten minutes of

spouting lyddite volcanoes finished the _minnenwerfer_ trouble. But

all this above-ground work was by way of an aside to the Sapper

Subaltern. He was far too busy with his mine gallery to worry about

the doings of gunners and bomb-throwers and infantry and such-like

fellows. When these people interfered with his work they were a

nuisance of course, but he always managed to find a working party for

the sandbagging protective work without stopping the job underground.

So the gallery crept steadily on. They had to carry the tunnel rather

close to the surface because at very little depth they struck more

water than any pumps, much less their single farmyard one, could cope

with. The nearness to the surface made a fresh difficulty and

necessitated the greatest care in working under the ground between the

trenches, because here there were always deep shell-holes and craters

to be avoided or floored with the planking that made the tunnel roof.

So the gallery had to be driven carefully at a level below the danger

of exposure through a shell-hole and above the depth at which the water

lay. This meant a tunnel too low to stand or even kneel in with a

straight back, and the men, kneeling in mud, crouched back on their

heels and with rounded back and shoulders, struck their spades forward

into the face and dragged the earth out spadeful by spadeful. Despite

the numbing cold mud they knelt in, the men, stripped to shirts with

rolled sleeves and open throats, streamed rivulets of sweat as they

worked; for the air was close and thick and heavy, and the exertion in

the cramped space was one long muscle-racking strain.

Once the roof and walls caved in, and three men were imprisoned. The

collapse came during the night, fortunately, and, still more

fortunately behind the line and parapet of the forward trench. The

Subaltern flung himself and his men on the muddy wreckage in frantic

haste to clear an opening and admit air to the imprisoned men. It took

time, a heart-breaking length of time; and it was with a horrible dread

in his heart that the Subaltern at last pushed in to the uncovered

opening and crawled along the tunnel, flashing his electric torch

before him. Half-way to the end he felt a draught of cold air, and,

promptly extinguishing his lamp, saw a hole in the roof. His men were

alive all right, and not only alive but keeping on hard at work at the

end of the tunnel. When the collapse came they had gone back to where

their roof lay across the bottom of a shell-hole, pulled a plank out,

and--gone back to work.

When the tunnel reached a point under the German parapet it was turned

sharp to left and right, forming a capital T with the cross-piece

running roughly along the line of trench and parapet. Here there was

need of the utmost deliberation and caution. A pick could not be used,

and even a spade had to be handled gently, in case the sounds of

working should reach the Germans overhead. In some places the

Subaltern could actually hear the movements and footsteps of the enemy

just above him.

Twice the diggers disturbed a dead German, buried evidently under the

parapet. Once a significant crumbling of the earth and fall of a few

heavy clods threatened a collapse where the gallery was under the edge

of the trench. The spot was hastily but securely shored up with

infinite caution and the least possible sound, and after that the

Subaltern had the explosive charges brought along and connected up in

readiness. Then, if the roof collapsed or their work were discovered,

the switch at the shaft could still be pressed, the wires would still

carry the current, and the mine would be exploded.

At last the Subaltern decided that everything was ready. He carefully

placed his charges, connected up his wires again, cleared out his

tools, and emerged to report 'all ready.'

Now the 'touching off' of a good-sized mine is not a matter to be done

lightly or without due and weighty authority, and that because more is

meant to result from it than the upheaval of some square yards of earth

and the destruction of so many yards of enemy trench. The mine itself,

elaborate and labour-making as it may have been, is, after all, only a

means to an end. That end may be the capture of a portion of the ruins

of the trench, it may be the destruction of an especially strong and

dangerous 'keep,' a point of resistance or an angle for attack. It may

even be a mine to destroy a mine which is known to be tunnelling into

our own trenches, but in any case the explosion is usually a signal for

attack from one side or the other, and therefore requires all the usual

elaborate arrangements of reinforcements and supports and so on.

Therefore the Sapper Subaltern, when he had finished his work and made

his report, had nothing to do but sit down and wait until other

people's preparations were made, and he received orders to complete his

work by utterly and devastatingly destroying it. The Subaltern found

this wait about the most trying part of the whole affair, more

especially since he had for a good many days and nights had so much to

occupy his every moment.

He received word at last of the day and hour appointed for the

explosion, and had the honour of a visit of inspection from a very

superior officer who pored long and painstakingly over the paper plans,

put a great many questions, even went the length of walking down the

communication trench and peering down the entrance shaft, and looking

over the sandbagged wall through a periscope at the section of German

trench marked down for destruction. Then he complimented the Subaltern

on his work, declined once again the offer of a muddy mackintosh and an

invitation to crawl down the mine, and went off. The Subaltern saw him

off the premises, returned to the shaft and donned the mackintosh, and

crawled off up his tunnel once more.

Somehow, now that the whole thing was finished and ready, he felt a

pang of reluctance to destroy it and so fulfil its destiny. As he

crawled along, he noted each little bit of shoring-up and supporting

planks, each rise and fall in the floor, each twist and angle in the

direction, and recalled the infinite labour of certain sections, his

glows of satisfaction at the speed of progress at the easy bits, his

impatience at the slow and difficult portions. It seemed as if he had

been building that tunnel for half a lifetime, had hardly ever done

anything else but build it or think about building it. And now,

to-morrow it was all to be destroyed. He recalled with a thrill of

boyish pleasure the word of praise from the Corporal--a far greater

pleasure, by the way, than he had derived from the Great One's

compliments--the praise of one artist to another, the recognition of

good work done, by one who himself had helped in many good works and

knew well of what he spoke. 'She's done, sir,' the Corporal had said.

'And if I may say so, sir, she's a credit to you. A mighty tricky job,

sir, and I've seen plenty with long years in the Service that would ha'

been stumped at times. I'm glad to have had a hand in it wi' you, sir.

And all the men feel the same way about it.'

Ah well, the Subaltern thought as he halted at the joint of the

T-piece, none of them felt the same about it as he himself did. He

squatted there a moment, listening to the drip of water that was the

only sound. Suddenly his heart leapt . . . was it the only sound?

What was that other, if it could be called a sound? It was a sense

rather, an indefinable blending of senses of hearing and feel and

touch--a faint, barely perceptible 'thump, thump,' like the beat of a

man's heart in his breast. He snapped off the light of his electric

lamp and crouched breathless in the darkness, straining his ears to

hear. He was soon satisfied. He had not lived these days past with

the sound of digging in his ears by day and his dreams by night not to

recognise the blows of a pick. There . . . they had stopped now; and

in imagination he pictured the digger laying down the pick to shovel

out the loosened earth. Then, after a pause, the measured thump, thump

went on again. The Subaltern crawled along first one arm of the

cross-section and then the other, halting every now and then to place

his ear to the wet planking or the wetter earth. He located at last

the point nearest to the sound, and without more waste of time scurried

off down his tunnel to daylight.

He was back in the mine again in less than half an hour--a bare thirty

minutes, but each minute close packed with concentrated essence of

thought and action.

The nearest trench telephone had put him in touch with Battalion

Headquarters, and through them with Brigade, Divisional, and General

Headquarters. He had told his story and asked for his orders clearly,

quickly, and concisely. The Germans were countermining. Their tunnel

could not possibly miss ours, and, by the sound, would break through in

thirty to sixty minutes. What were his orders? It took some little

time for the orders to come, mainly because--although he knew nothing

of it--his mine was part of a scheme for a general attack, and general

attacks are affairs that cannot be postponed or expedited as easily as

a cold lunch. But the Subaltern filled in the time of waiting, and

when the orders did come he was ready for them or any other. They were

clear and crisp--he was to fire the mine, but only at the latest

possible minute. That was all he got, and indeed all he wanted; and,

since they did not concern him, there is no need here to tell of the

swirl of other orders that buzzed and ticked and talked by field

telegraph and telephone for miles up and down and behind the British

line.

Before these orders had begun to take shape or coherency as a whole,

the Subaltern was back listening to the thump, thump of the German

picks, and busily completing his preparations. It was near noon, and

perhaps the workers would stop for a meal, which would give another

hour for troops to be pushed up or whatever else the Generals wanted

time for. It might even be that a fall of their roof, an extra inflow

of water to their working, any one of the scores of troubles that

hamper and hinder underground mining might stop the crawling advance of

the German sappers for a day or two and allow the Subaltern's mine to

play its appointed part at the appointed time of the grand attack.

But meantime the Subaltern took no chances. First he connected up a

short switch which in the last extreme of haste would allow him with

one touch of his finger to blow up his mine and himself with it. He

buried or concealed the wires connecting the linked charges with the

switch outside so as to have a chance of escape himself. He opened a

portable telephone he had carried with him and joined up to the wire he

had also carried in, and so was in touch with his Corporal and the

world of the aboveground. All these things he did himself because

there was no need to risk more than one man in case of a quick

explosion. Then, his preparations complete, he sat down to wait and to

listen to the thudding picks of the Germans. They were very near now,

and with his ear to the wall the Subaltern could hear the shovels now

as well as the picks. He shut his lamp off after a last look at his

switch, his revolver, and the glistening walls and mud-ooze floor of

his tunnel, and sat still in the darkness. Once he whispered an answer

into the telephone to his Corporal, and once he flicked his lamp on an

instant to glance at the watch on his wrist. Then he crouched still

and silent again. The thumping of his heart nearly drowned the thud of

the picks, he was shivering with excitement, and his mouth grew dry and

leathery. He felt a desire to smoke, and had his case out and a

cigarette in his lips when it occurred to him that, when the Germans

broke through, the smell of the smoke would tell them instantly that

they were in an occupied working. He counted on a certain amount of

delay and doubt on their part when their picks first pierced his wall,

and he counted on that pause again to give him time to escape. So he

put the cigarette away, and immediately was overwhelmed with a craving

for it. He fought it for five minutes that felt like five hours, and

felt his desire grow tenfold with each minute. It nearly drove him to

doing what all the risk, all the discomfort of his cramped position,

all the danger, had not done--to creep out and fire the mine without

waiting for that last instant when the picks would break through. It

could make little difference, he argued to himself, in the movements of

those above. What could five minutes more, or ten, or even fifteen,

matter now? It might even be that he was endangering the success of

the explosion by waiting, and it was perhaps wiser to crawl out at once

and fire the mine--and he could safely light a cigarette then as soon

as he was round the corner of the T. So he argued the matter out,

fingering his cigarette-case and longing for the taste of the tobacco,

and yet knowing in his inmost heart that he would not move, despite his

arguments, until the first pick came through. He heard the strokes

draw nearer and nearer, and now he held his breath and strained his

eyes as each one was delivered. The instant he had waited for came in

exactly the fashion he had expected--a thud, a thread of yellow light

piercing the black dark, a grunt of surprise from the pick-wielder at

the lack of resistance to his stroke. All this was just what he had

expected, had known would happen. The next stroke would show the

digger that he was entering some hole. Then there would be cautious

investigation, the sending back word to an officer, the slow and

careful enlargement of the opening. And before that moment came the

Subaltern would be down his tunnel, and outside, and pressing the

switch . . .

But his programme worked out no further than that first instant and

that first gleam of light. He saw the gleam widen suddenly as the pick

was withdrawn, heard another quick blow, saw the round spot of light

run out in little cracks and one wide rift, and suddenly the wall fell

in, and he was staring straight into the German gallery, with a dark

figure silhouetted clear down to the waist against the light of an

electric bulb-lamp which hung from the gallery roof. For an instant

the Subaltern's blood froze. The figure of the German was only

separated from him by a bare three yards, and to his dark-blinded eyes

it seemed that he himself was standing in plain view in a brilliant

blaze of light. Actually he was in almost complete darkness. The

single light in the German gallery hardly penetrated through the gloom

of his own tunnel, and what little did showed nothing to the eyes of

the German, used to the lamp-light and staring suddenly into the black

rift before him. But the German called out to some one behind him,

twisted round, moved, stooping, back to the lamp and reached up a hand

to it. The Subaltern backed away hastily, his eyes fixed on the glow

of light in the opening. The hole had broken through on a curve of his

tunnel, so that for fifteen or twenty feet back he could still see down

the German gallery, could watch the man unhook the lamp and carry it

back to the opening, thrust the lamp before him and lean in over the

crumbling heap of earth his pick had brought down. The Subaltern

stopped and drew a gasping breath and held it. Discovery was a matter

of seconds now. He had left his firing switch, but he still carried

the portable telephone slung from his shoulder, the earth-pin dangling

from it. He had only to thrust the pin into the mud and he was

connected up with the Corporal at the outside switch, had only to shout

one word, 'Fire!'--and it would all be over. Quickly but noiselessly

he put his hand down to catch up the wire with the earth-pin. His hand

touched the revolver-butt in his holster, checked at it, closed round

it and slid it softly out. All this had taken an instant of time, and

as he raised his weapon he saw the German still staring hard under the

upheld lamp into the gloom. He was looking the other way, and the

Subaltern levelled the heavy revolver and paused. The sights stood out

clear and black against the figure standing in the glow of light--a

perfect and unmissable target. The man was bareheaded, and wore a

mud-stained blue shirt with sleeves cut off above the elbow. The

Subaltern moved the notched sights from under the armpit of the raised

arm that held up the light, and steadied them on the round of the ear

that stood out clear against the close-cropped black hair. He heard a

guttural exclamation of wonder, saw the head come slowly round until

the circle of the ear foreshortened and moved past his sights, and they

were centred straight between the staring eyes. His finger contracted

on the trigger, but a sudden qualm stayed him. It wasn't fair, it

wasn't sporting, it was too like shooting a sitting hare. And the man

hadn't seen him even yet. Man? This was no man; a lad rather, a

youth, a mere boy, with childish wondering eyes, a smooth oval chin,

the mouth of a pretty girl. The Subaltern had a school-boy brother

hardly younger than this boy; and a quick vision rose of a German

mother and sisters--no, he couldn't shoot; it would be murder; it--and

then a quick start, an upward movement of the lamp, a sharp question,

told him the boy had seen. The Subaltern spoke softly in fairly good

German. 'Run away, my boy. In an instant my mine will explode.'

'Who is it? Who is there?' gasped the boy.

The Subaltern chuckled, and grinned wickedly. Swiftly he dropped the

revolver, fumbled a moment, and pulled a coil of capped fuse from his

pocket.

'It is the English,' he said. 'It is an English mine that I now

explode,' and, on the word, lit the fuse and flung it, fizzing and

spitting a jet of sparks and smoke, towards the boy. The lad flinched

back and half turned to run, but the Subaltern saw him look round over

his shoulder and twist back, saw the eyes glaring at the fiery thing in

the mud, the dreadful resolve grow swiftly on the set young face, the

teeth clamped on the resolve. He was going to dash for the fuse, to

try to wrench it out and, as he supposed, prevent the mine exploding.

The Subaltern jerked up the revolver again. This would never do; the

precious seconds were flying; at any moment another man might come. He

would have saved this youngster if he could, but he could allow nothing

to risk failure for his mine. 'Get back,' he said sharply. 'Get back

quickly, or I shall shoot.'

But now what he had feared happened. A voice called, a scuffling

footfall sounded in the German gallery, a dim figure pushed forward

into the light beside the boy. The Subaltern saw that it was an

officer, heard his angry oath in answer to the boy's quick words, his

shout, 'The light, fool--break it'; saw the clenched fist's vicious

buffet in the boyish face and the quick grab at the electric bulb. The

Subaltern's revolver sights slid off the boy and hung an instant on the

snarling face of the officer. . . .

In the confined space the roar of his heavy revolver rolled and

thundered in reverberating echoes, the swirling powder-reek blinded him

and stung in his nostrils; and as the smoke cleared he could see the

boy scrambling back along his gallery and the officer sprawled face

down across the earth-heap in the light of the fallen lamp.

The Subaltern smashed the lamp himself before he too turned and

plunged, floundering and slipping and stumbling, for his exit in an

agony of haste and apprehension. It was all right, he told himself a

dozen times; the officer was done for--the back of that head and a past

knowledge of a service revolver's work at close range told him that

plain enough; it would take a good many minutes for the boy to tell his

tale, and even then, if a party ventured back at once, it would take

many more minutes in the dark--and he was glad he thought to smash the

lamp--before they could find his charges or the wires. It was safe

enough, but--the tunnel had never seemed so long or the going so slow.

He banged against beams and supports, ploughed through sticky mud and

churning water, rasped his knuckles, and bruised knees and elbows in

his mad haste. It was safe enough, but--but--but--suppose there was no

response to his pressure on the switch; suppose there had been some

silly mistake in making the connections; suppose the battery wouldn't

work. There were a score of things to go wrong. Thank goodness he had

overhauled and examined everything himself; although that again would

only make it more appallingly awful if things didn't work. No time

now, no chance to go back and put things right. Perhaps he ought to

have stayed back there and made the contact. A quick end if it worked

right, and a last chance to refix it if it didn't; yes, he . . . but

here was the light ahead. He shouted 'Fire!' at the top of his voice,

still hurrying on and half cowering from the expected roar and shock of

the explosion. Nothing happened. He shouted again and again as loud

as his sobbing breath and labouring lungs would let him.

Still--nothing; and it began to sear his brain as a dreadful certainty

that he had failed, that his mine was a ghastly frost, that all the

labour gone to its making and the good lives spent on it were wasted.

He stumbled weakly out into the shaft, caught a glimpse of the

Corporal's set face staring at the tunnel mouth, and tried once more to

call out 'Fire!' But the Corporal was waiting for no word. He had

already got that, had heard the Subaltern's first shouts roll down the

tunnel, in fact was waiting with a finger on the exploding switch for

the moment the Subaltern should appear. The finger moved steadily over

as the Subaltern stumbled into sight--and the solid earth heaved

convulsively, shuddered, and rocked and shook to the roaring blast of

the explosion.

The shock and the rush of air from the tunnel-mouth caught the

Subaltern, staggering to his knees, and flung him headlong. And as he

picked himself up again the air darkened with whizzing clods and mud

and dust and stones and dirt that rained down from the sky. Before the

echoes of the explosion had died away, before the last fragments and

debris had fallen, there came the sound of another roar, the bellowing

thunder of the British guns throwing a storm of shell and shrapnel

between the German supports and the ruined trench. That, and another

sound, told the Subaltern that the full fruits of his work were to be

fully reaped--the sound of the guns and of the full, deep-chested,

roaring cheers of the British infantry as they swarmed from their

trenches and rushed to occupy the crater of the explosion.

* * * * *

Later in the day, when the infantry had made good their possession of

the place, had sandbagged and fortified it to stand against the

expected counter-attacks, the Subaltern went to look over the ground

and see at first and close hand the results of his explosion.

Technically, he found it interesting; humanly, it was merely sickening.

The ground was one weltering chaos and confusion of tossed earth-heaps

and holes, of broken beams and jagged-ended planks, of flung sandbags

and wrecked barricading. Of trench or barricade, as trench and

barricade, there remained, simply, no sign. The wreckage was scattered

thick with a dreadful debris of dead bodies, of bloody clothing, of

helmets and broken rifles, burst packs and haversacks, bayonets,

water-bottles, and shattered equipments. The Ambulance men were busy,

but there were still many dead and dying and wounded to be removed,

wounded with torn flesh and mangled limbs, dead and dying with scorched

and smouldering clothes. The infantry, hastily digging and filling

sandbags and throwing up parapets on the far edge of the reeking

explosion pit, had found many bodies caught in the descending avalanche

of earth or buried in the collapsed trenches and dug-outs; and here and

there, amid the confusion, a foot or a hand protruding stark from some

earth-heap marked the death-place of other victims. The whole scene

was one of death and desolation, of ruin and destruction, and the

Subaltern turned from it sick at stomach. It was the first result of a

big explosion he had seen. This was the sort of thing that he had read

so often summed up in a line of the Official Despatch or a two-line

newspaper paragraph: 'A mine was successfully exploded under a section

of the enemy's trench.' A mine--_his_ mine. . . . 'God!' the Subaltern

said softly under his breath, and looked wonderingly about him.

''E's a bloomin' little butcher, is that Lefftenant of ours,' the

Corporal said that night. ''Course it was a good bit o' work, an' he'd

reason to be proud of it; but--well I thought I'd a strongish stomach,

an' I've seen some dirty blood-an'-bones messes in my time but that

scorchin' shambles near turned me over. An' he comes back, after

lookin' at it, as cheerful as the cornerman o' a Christie Minstrel

troupe, an' as pleased as a dog wi' two tails. Fair pleased, 'e was.'

But he was a little wrong. What had brought the Subaltern back with

such a cheerful air was not the sight of his work, not the grim picture

of the smashed trenches. It was an encounter he had had with a little

group of German prisoners, the recognising amongst them of a dirty,

mud-stained blue shirt with sleeves cut off above the elbows, a

close-cropped bare head, a boy's face with smooth oval chin and girlish

eyes. The mine work he had directed, but others had shared it. It was

the day's work--it was an incident of war--it was, after all, merely 'a

mine successfully exploded . . .' But that one life saved was also his

work, and, moreover, his own, his individual personal work. It was of

that he thought most as he came back smiling to his Corporal.