, 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
the