Exactly. It would not have stood even a whizz-bang. A rifle-grenade would almost certainly have come right through it. As for a canister or H.E., it would have gone through like a stone piercing wet paper. But it had been Company Headquarters for so long--it was so light and, being next door to the servants’ dug-out, so convenient--that we always lived in it still; though we slept in a dug-out a little way down Old Kent Road, which was certainly whizz-bang--if not canister--proof.
At any rate, here were Edwards and myself, drinking rather watery ox-tail soup out of very dinted tin-plates--the spoons were scraping noisily on the metal; overhead, a rat appeared out of the straw thatch, looked at me, blinked, turned about, and disappeared again, sending a little spill of earth on to the table.
“Hang these rats,” I exclaimed, for the tenth time that day.
Outside, it was brilliant moonlight: whenever the door opened, I saw it. It was very quiet. Then I heard voices, the sound of a lot of men, moving in the shuffling sort of way that men do move at night in a communication trench.
The door flew open, and Captain Robertson looked in.
“You’ve got those sand-bags up by 78 Street?” he said, sitting down.
“Yes, 250 there, and 250 right up in the Loop. The rest I shall use on the Fort. Oh! by the way, you know we are strafing at 12.5? We just had a message up from Dale. I shall knock off at 11.45 to-night!”
“I’ll see how we get on. I want to finish that traverse. Righto. I’m just drawing tools and going up now.”
And the muttering stream of “A” Company filed past the dug-out, going up to the front line. The door swung open suddenly, and each man looked in as he went by.
“Shut the door,” I shouted. Our plates themselves somehow suddenly looked epicurean.
Soon after eight I was up in the front line. It was the brightest night we had had, and ideal for sand-bag work. The men were already at it. There was a certain amount of inevitable talking going on, before everyone got really started. We were working on the Fort, completing two box dug-outs that we had half put in the night before; also, we were thickening the parapet, between the Fort and the Loop, and building a new fire-step.
“Can’t see any b---- sand-bags here,” came from one man.