carry all the sleepers across the line and stack
them in four rows on the far side of the fence.

"Is it a task job?" we asked.

The Sergeant did not know.

"What did they make us bring our shovels for?"

A voice, mocking such a naive questioner, answered:

"Don't yer know the army be now?"

We broke down a section of the fence. Two men were assigned to each
stack. They loaded each sleeper on to the shoulders of a couple of men
who carried it across the railway lines into the field, where it would
be received and stacked by other men.

Hour by hour we trudged to and fro in pairs, bearing our wet and heavy
loads. We lost consciousness of everything except driving snow,
squelching mud, aching backs and sore shoulders. When one shoulder
became so sore that mere contact with our load was intensely painful, we
changed over to the other, until that too became bruised, and then we
would change back again. And so on, hour by hour.

Our legs seemed as heavy as lead and yet they seemed to move of their
own accord without any effort of the will. Our minds became blurred and
numb--a numbness that was broken from time to time by a sharp stab of
pain whenever a sleeper was placed across our shoulders.

"For Christ's sake, let's 'ave a blow," said my partner suddenly.

I looked at my watch. It was a quarter-past ten--nearly two hours more
till lunch!

We observed that only a small number of men were working, and my partner
blurted out:

"I ain't goin' ter do more'n me share. There's a lot o' fellers swingin'
the lead be'ind them stacks. I'm goin' ter 'ave a bit of a rest, I'm
bloody well done up."

We both went behind a stack and found that a crowd of men had gone there
before us. One of them shouted cheerfully: "Here come two more
leadswingers!" [idlers] We leaned against the wood and rested, but a few
minutes had hardly passed when a Corporal appeared and shouted
peremptorily: "Come on out o' that--get on wi' yer job an' put a jerk in
it." We struggled reluctantly back to our work.

The wearisome, monotonous trudge began again. As the first stacks
disappeared the journey became longer and longer. I again looked at my
watch--it was twenty to eleven. The quarter-past ten seemed several
hours ago! The way the time dragged drove us to despair. But there was
no escape--we had to live through every minute of this dismal day.

My partner and I worked on in silence. Gradually the men slackened their
pace and tried to mis