He found it almost buried under loose earth, and he replaced it on the table after removing as much of the dirt as possible. The long French loaf was more easily freed from its covering of earth, and the butter was cleanly wrapped in paper. Tea was the difficulty. They needed something hot to warm them for the long task that lay ahead, but he dared not light a fire. One of Kelly’s gang might see the smoke. There was one bottle of wine left, but wine at breakfast was not very enticing. He looked through the articles which Alf had looted from the canteen and found what he needed, two slabs of solidified alcohol, refills for a Tommy’s cooker. With one of these he boiled enough water for a mug of tea each, and then he awakened Alf.
They ate an excellent breakfast. Rawley insisted upon it; and Alf needed little encouragement. They had ample supplies. More, perhaps, than they would be able to carry away, and they would work the better for a full meal.
After breakfast they piled their stores in the corner farthest from the shaft, and set to work. Their only implement was an entrenching-tool, and they arranged that one should dig in the shaft whilst the other, armed with a board, shovelled the loose earth from the step and piled it in a corner of the dug-out. With such a small implement progress was necessarily slow, and other difficulties soon presented themselves.
Rawley had taken first turn with the entrenching-tool, and after twenty minutes hard digging, when he had made a tunnel some two feet in diameter and three feet in length, the roof came in and not only covered the two steps he had cleared but the third as well. Alf then took a turn at digging, but no sooner had he made a tunnel a few feet in length than a like catastrophe occurred.
Rawley suspended operations and lighted his pipe. “If we go on like this,” he said, “the roof will keep coming in and we shall have to go on digging till we’ve dug out all the earth on top—and that’s a good thirty feet. The only other thing to do is to revet the tunnel with timber. And the question is, where is the timber coming from?” He looked round the dug-out. “We can break up those boxes, and those few floor boards will have to come up. And we may be able to take a plank here and there from the walls. We’ll make the tunnel as small as possible—just big enough to crawl through and if we put the planks like an inverted V, that will save one bit of wood each time on the roof. Come on, let’s get to work. Where is that saw?”
By experiment they found that when two planks about two and a half feet in length were propped against each other with their bases some two feet apart, it was just possible to crawl under them. Alf set to work with the saw, and Rawley resumed digging, but he found, as soon as the first two revetments were in position, that although it was not difficult to crawl under them it was no easy matter to dig. The confined space made it impossible to swing the entrenchment tool, and he had to remove the handle and use the blade as a scoop. Also it was very tiring to dig while lying flat on the chest; and the only way of getting rid of the loose earth was to push it down one’s side with one hand, and then by bending the knee as far as possible, scrape it out behind to Alf with one foot. However they persevered, and when the tunnel was nearly seven feet in length, knocked off and ate another meal.
But the work became harder and more difficult as they progressed. The confined space made breathing so difficult that ten minutes or a quarter of an hour was as long as one could dig without a rest, and there was the ever present fear that a pair of the planks would slip and block the tunnel behind one. It took several minutes to crawl up the tunnel to the point of working, and more than double that time to worm one’s way out backwards.
Rawley indeed did have an accident. While scraping the earth back behind him his foot displaced a board and brought down a small avalanche of earth that blocked the tunnel behind him. Fortunately Alf was in the tunnel at the moment and was able to scrape away enough earth with his hands to allow him to replace the revetment.
When the tunnel reached the top of the steps Rawley wormed his way out backwards into the dug-out and announced his intention of knocking off for the night. They were both utterly worn out, and it was obviously unwise to continue. They ate a meal in a depressed silence which the last bottle of wine was unable to relieve. Though tired out, Rawley found it impossible to sleep. He tossed from side to side on his narrow wire-netting bunk, and when at times he did doze, it was only to dream that he was still working on the tunnel, or to awaken with the horror of entombment upon him. The prospect of the morrow appalled him. The thought of again entering the tunnel terrified him. His thoughts revolved in an endless circle; sleep would not come.
At last he abandoned the pretence. He cautiously lighted the candle and shielded the light from Alf, whose regular breathing came from the opposite bunk. He filled his pipe, that one soothing companion of all his troubles, and with the first few fragrant puffs his mind ceased to revolve futilely in a circle: it began to work constructively.
He rummaged in his box of odds and ends for a pencil. He opened the half-used field message book and began to draw a sectional plan of the dug-out, the shaft, and the gallery that led up to the trench. He drew it roughly to scale, using one side of the little squares into which the paper was divided to represent one foot. There were ten steps in the shaft that led immediately from the dug-out, then followed a gallery some sixteen feet in length, sloping upwards and ending in three steps up into the trench. They had dug the tunnel to the top of the shaft; there remained the gallery and the three steps to be traversed. Looking at the diagram, he saw clearly now what he had realized subconsciously for some time; they would never be able to complete the tunnel. Apart from the doubtful possibility of their being able to endure the strain of working in and digging so long and small a tunnel, there was not enough timber left to revet it. They had already taken from the walls of the dug-out nearly all the timber that could be removed with safety.
The realization of this, however, did not depress him. His feeling was rather of relief at the knowledge that he would not have to work again in that detestable tunnel. But some other way out must be found, and he set to work to tackle the problem.
He started, as it were, from first causes. The passage to the upper air was blocked by a fall of earth caused by the explosion, presumably of a shell. This had no doubt caused the roof to collapse in the neighbourhood of the explosion, but surely not the whole length of that gallery and shaft. For at least half the distance that separated the dug-out from the trench the timber roof must still be in position, although the passage itself was blocked with earth. Therefore, theoretically, that cramped and terrifying tunnel should be necessary only to traverse the actual place where the roof timbers had collapsed. But where was that place?
He turned again to his diagram. About half way down the sloping gallery there had been a fall of earth, round which he and Alf had always had to squeeze when entering or leaving the dug-out, and it was at this bottle-neck that they had erected the baulk of timber wedged with a pit-prop that they called their door. Kelly’s men had not forced this; therefore the explosion had taken place on the far side of it. Almost certainly they had placed the shell on the other side of the “door,” and exploded it there. If that were so, it was probable that only a section of the roof timbers in the middle of the gallery were shattered, and those in the shaft were almost certainly intact. The earth that blocked the steps was due merely to the steepness of the shaft. If they could clear this out, the actual tunnel would be needed only in that collapsed section in the middle of the gallery. The plan would be not to dig along the floor as they had done up to now, but to dig along the top just under the roof timbers, and to start the tunnel only when they ceased.
Having worked this out to his satisfaction, he climbed again into his bunk, blew out the candle, and in a few minutes was asleep.
II
When Rawley awoke it was to find that Alf had already been up some time and that breakfast was ready. During the eating of it he told Alf the result of his nocturnal meditations and submitted the diagram for verification. Alf thought that
the gallery was longer than Rawley had drawn it, but expressed his unqualified delight at the news that he would not have to start work again immediately in the tunnel.
They began digging at the top as Rawley had suggested, and found that, with the increased room and air, the work proceeded much faster than formerly. The few remaining planks were used to stop the earth from sliding farther down the shaft, and then a tunnel was dug about two feet in diameter just under the roof beams, the digger crawling over the earth that covered the steps. They found as Rawley had anticipated that the roof beams were intact, and they reached the entrance to the gallery after a little over two hours digging. They had not progressed more than about four feet along the gallery, however, before the entrenching-tool struck a hard substance. Rawley, who was digging at the time, called for a candle, and by its light found that the obstacle was a thick baulk of timber buried in the soil. This was evidently one of the roof timbers. The baulk lay diagonally across their tunnel, the upper end resting on one of the side timbers of the gallery, the lower end disappearing into the surrounding soil.
They had now reached the collapsed sector where tunnelling would be necessary, but Rawley foresaw a new difficulty. Ahead of him these shattered roof timbers lay, no doubt, embedded in the soil at all angles, and the difficulty of digging the tunnel that was now necessary would be greatly increased by having to go over or under these timbers whenever they were encountered. The problem required thinking out. They had already wasted much time and labour by hasty action, and he had no intention of making a second mistake. They had been at work for over three hours. He decided to take their midday meal and think over the problem.
“It’s quite simple really,” he said to Alf as he lighted his pipe at the end of the meal. “The explosion would shatter the timbers and probably raise them a little, and then the earth on top would come in and fill the gallery. Therefore, the timbers must be—most of them at any rate—below their normal position. If we dig our tunnel upwards a bit then, just above the old level of the roof, we ought not to strike any timbers. And now we must crawl up that damned tunnel of ours and bring out the planks; for we shall want them for the new tunnel.”
They tossed to decide who should go first, and Alf won. So Rawley wormed his way up the narrow tunnel and very gingerly removed the last two supporting planks. He managed to slide them over his back and push them away with his feet. Then he moved back a bit and removed the next two planks. He removed three before the unsupported part of the tunnel fell in, and then the rush of earth flowed into his face and nearly suffocated him. It was a terrifying experience, lying as he was in complete darkness; but when he had wormed back a foot or two the rush of earth ceased. It made it very difficult, however, to remove the end pair of planks which were now completely embedded in soil. He managed it at last without any further fall of earth, and then he wormed his way back to the dug-out for a rest.
Alf then took his turn and brought out several more pairs of planks, and finally all were removed without accident. But the operation had taken them nearly as long as the whole digging of the larger tunnel under the roof. Alf wiped the sweat from his face with a grimy hand. He made no attempt to disguise his dislike of narrow tunnels. He was obviously not looking forward to the digging of the new one. He said that they had done enough for one day, and suggested that they should turn in and leave the beginning of the new one for the morrow.
Rawley disagreed. He disliked the tunnel, he said, as much as Alf did—perhaps more—but that was all the more reason for splitting up the work into short stretches. If they dug only four feet tonight that would be four feet less to dig tomorrow, and they would be very glad of those four feet before tomorrow was out.
And so they set to work. One point Rawley found he had forgotten: the fact that by digging along the top instead of along the floor of the gallery they had deprived themselves of a firm base on which to rest the inverted Vs. At the first attempt the edges of the planks gradually drove into the soil by reason of the pressure above, but they overcame the difficulty by resting the inverted V upon a third plank which formed the floor of the tunnel. And although the amount of timber they would need was thus increased by one third, Rawley was confident that they would have enough.
He produced his diagram to prove his contention. The gallery, they were agreed, was roughly sixteen feet in length. The explosion had taken place nearly in the middle—that was to say, some eight feet from the top of the shaft. Four feet from the top of the shaft they had reached the limit of the roof’s collapse. That was presumably four feet from the centre of the explosion; and presuming that the damage on the far side was of equal extent, a further four feet should bring them to the undamaged roof again. The tunnel then would be only eight feet in length, and they had ample timber for that. They drove their tunnel three feet and then turned in for the night.
III
The next morning they continued the work in good spirits. Alf went in first and extended the tunnel to seven feet; and then Rawley took his turn whilst Alf in the larger tunnel under the sound roof passed up the revetting planks and shovelled out the loose earth. Rawley added a foot, put up the V-shaped revetting planks, and wormed forward again. He added a further two feet and discovered, whilst making a firm bed for a floor plank to rest on, that there were timbers beneath him. He cleared away some of the earth that covered them and satisfied himself by feeling over them that they were the roof timbers of the gallery undamaged and in position. They had bridged the gap, but by digging their tunnel a little high, were now on top instead of under the roof timbers beyond.
Rawley wormed his way back a foot and cleared the soil from the top of the roof timbers. He went back a further foot before he found the edge of the gap where the roof timbers had collapsed. Then he dug down and under. And very glad he was to feel a substantial roof over his head again.
It was time for Alf to relieve him at digging, but he was too near success now to stop. With a firm roof overhead, and plenty of room to swing the entrenching-tool, the work progressed rapidly. Barely four feet of the new broad tunnel had been dug before the earth seemed to melt from his entrenching-tool and light flowed over him like cool water. It was a very subdued light, but the blessed light of day nevertheless. The roof was close above him, and he lay on his side looking down a slope of loose earth. At the foot of the slope were the steps leading up into the trench by the entrance that was partially blocked by the old landslide. Through the small gap under the fallen beam subdued daylight now streamed.
Rawley shouted the good news to Alf and scrambled down the slope. A few moments later they stood side by side in the trench drinking in the clean air and revelling in the clear light of day, and at that moment the dreary landscape that stretched about them seemed the most beautiful they had ever gazed upon.
At last Rawley turned. “Well,” he said, “now we must go back, pack up, have a meal, and clear.”
Alf grimaced. “I never thought we’d get up here no more,” he said. “But now we are up ’ere, I don’t like goin’ back again. Do you? S’posin’ that perishin’ little tunnel come in!”
“It won’t,” said Rawley. He spoke shortly, for he was very much of Alf’s way of thinking. “And besides, what about our stores! Are we going to leave all those?”
“I s’pose not,” said Alf gloomily.
“Come on, I’ll go first,” said Rawley.
They reached the dug-out in safety, and recommenced the task of packing that had been interrupted so dramatically. Then they ate their last meal at the little table and prepared to leave. Alf went first with a rope in his hand. He crawled through the eight odd feet of narrow tunnel and then, by means of the rope, dragged his rolled-up blankets after him. The rope was passed back and Rawley’s blankets were drawn through. Then the other stores were dragged through in like manner. Rawley was about to follow when a shout from Alf stopped him. “My suit-case, chum!” he called. “Struth, I nearly forgot all about it. It’s un’erneath my bunk.”
Up in the trench they divided the stores, slung the rolled blankets over their shoulders, and shouldered their sacks. In addition they each carried a rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition. Alf carried his precious suit-case across his chest to balance the weight of the sack to which it was tied. Rawley had the tattered maps.
They followed the trench down to the ruined village from which they had so often drawn water; then, after assuring themselves that no one was in sight, crossed the grass-grown road and struck across country up the slope by the shattered wood. The ground was rough and, heavily loaded as they were, they made slow progress. Rawley had decided to cut straight across country towards the cellar which they had chosen for their future home. He had set his map as nearly as possible before leaving the trench, but he had no compass to guide him, and was marching by the glow of the sun that was occasionally visible behind the clouds.
Behind the Lines Page 21