ost 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