Hour by hour the work went on--skilfully, silently. On
these occasions it is impossible to say what will happen. The enemy
knows we are there: he can see us quite plainly. But he has his own
night-work to do, and if he interferes with us he knows that our
machine-guns will interfere with him. So, provided that our labours
are conducted in a manner which is neither ostentatious nor
contemptuous--that is to say, provided we do not talk, whistle, or
smoke--he leaves us more or less alone.
But this particular task was not accomplished without loss: it was too
obviously important. Several times the German machine-guns sputtered
into flame, and each time the stretcher-bearers were called upon to
do their duty. Yet the work went on to its accomplishment, without
question, without slackening. The men were nearly all experts: they
had handled pick and shovel from boyhood. Soldiers of the line would
have worked quite as hard, maybe, but they would have taken twice as
long. But these dour sons of Scotland worked like giants--trained
giants. In four nights the trench, with traverses and approaches, was
complete. The men who had made it fell back to their dug-outs, and
shortly afterwards to their billets--there to spend the few odd francs
which their separation allotments had left them, upon extremely
hard-earned glasses of extremely small beer.
At home, several thousand patriotic Welshmen, fellows of the same
craft, were upholding the dignity of Labour, and the reputation of
the British Nation, by going out on strike for a further increase of
pay--an increase which they knew a helpless Government would grant
them.
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