I want you each to go down quietly
and have a look over at the new ground, tell the company commanders
what the job is, and have a talk with me after as to what you think is
the best way of setting about it."
That afternoon Lieutenant Riley and Lieutenant Brock took turns in
peering through a periscope at the line of the new trench, and
discussed the problem presented.
"It's all very fine," grumbled Riley, "for the O.C. to say the men must
dig because he says so. You can take a horse to the water where you
can't make it drink, and by the same token you can put a spade in a
man's hand where you can't make him dig, or if he does dig he'll only
do it as slow and gingerly as if it were his own grave and he was to be
buried in it as soon as it was ready."
"Don't talk about burying," retorted Brock. "It isn't a pleasant
subject with so many candidates for a funeral scattered around the
front door."
He sniffed the air, and made an exclamation of disgust:
"They haven't even been chloride-of-limed," he said. "A lot of lazy,
untidy brutes that battalion must have been we have just relieved."
Riley stared again into the periscope: "It's German the most of them
are, anyway," he said, "that's one consolation, although it's small
comfort to a sense of smell. I say, have a look at that man lying over
there, out to the left of the listening-post.
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