As the earth was broken down and shoveled back, the doorway gradually
grew to be a passage. In this two men at a time worked in turn, the one
on the right-hand side making a narrow cut that barely gave him
shoulder-play, the second man on the left working a few paces in the
rear and widening the passage.
Necessarily it was slow work, because only these two men could reach
the face of the cut, and because it had to be of sufficient depth to
allow a man to work upright without his head showing above the ground.
But because they worked in short reliefs and put every ounce of energy
into their task, they made surprising and unusual progress.
Lieutenant Riley, who was in command of the listening-post for that
night, left the workers to themselves, both because it was necessary
for him to keep a sharp look-out in order to give warning of any
attempt to rush the working party, and because officially he was not
supposed to know anything of any sap to an officially unrecognized dead
German General.
When he was relieved after daybreak, Riley told the joke and explained
the position to the subaltern who took over from him, and that
subaltern in turn looked with a merely unofficial eye on the work of
the sapping party. As the day and the work went on, it was quite
obvious that a good many more men were working on the new trench than
had been told off to it.
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