The work to be done had been explained to the sergeants before we left our starting-point. As we went along, the R.E. officer told off men at ten or five yards’ interval, according to the amount of earth to be moved. Each man stopped when told off, and the rest of the company passed him. Sergeants and corporals stopped with their section or platoon, and got the men started as soon as the last man of the company had passed. At last up came the last man, sergeant, and the other officer, and together we went back all along. The men were on top (that is why the working-party was a night one); sometimes they had not understood their orders and were doing something wrong (a slack sergeant would then probably have to be routed out and told off). The men worked like fun, of course, it being known, to every one’s joy, that this was a piece-job, and that we went home as soon as it was finished. There was absolute silence, except the sound of falling earth, and an occasional chink of iron against stone; or a swish, and muttered cursings, as a bit of trench fell in with a slide, dragging a man with it; for it is not always easy to clear a yard-wide “berm” without crumbling the trench-edge in. One would not think these men were “worn out,” to see them working as no other men in the world can work; for nearly every man was a miner. The novice will do only half the work a trained miner will do, with the same effort.
Sometimes I was appealed to as to the “yard.” Was this wide enough? One man had had an unlucky bit given him with a lot of extra earth from a dug-out thrown on to the original lot. So I redivided the task. It is amazing the way the time passes while going along a line of workers, noticing, talking, correcting, praising. By the time I got to the first men of the company, they were half-way through the task.
At last the job was finished. As many men as space allowed were put on to help one section that somehow was behind; whether it was bad luck in distribution or slack work no one knew or cared. The work must be finished. The men wanted to smoke, but I would not let them; it was too near the front trenches. And then I did a foolish thing, which might have been disastrous! The R.E. corporal had remained, though the officer had left long ago. The corporal was to act as guide back, and this he was quite ready to do if I was not quite sure of the way. I, however, felt sure of it, and as the corporal would be saved a long tramp if he could go off to his dug-out direct without coming with us, I foolishly said I had no need of him, and let him go. I then lost my way completely. We had never been in that section before, and none of the sergeants knew it. We had come from the “R.E. Dump,” and thither we must return, leaving our tools on the way. But I had been told to take the men to the Divisional Soup Kitchen first, which was about four hundred yards north of X, the spot where we entered the C.T. and which I was trying to find. For all I knew I was going miles in the wrong direction. My only guide was the flares behind, which assured me I was not walking to the Germans but away from them. The unknown trenches began to excite among the sergeants the suspicion that all was not well. But I took the most colossal risk of stating that I knew perfectly well what I was doing, and strode on ahead.