Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/109

 critic, the man in the street, if he have a spark of imagination, to transport himself to a mine where there is yet ten yards to go. Whenever for a space the moles stop, and the underworld silence settles like a pall, they hear the tap-tap of the other workers’ ghostly fingers coming out to meet them. And then the tap-tap ceases. Have the others gone in the wrong direction, bearing away from them, or are they close to, three or four feet away even now charging the head of their countermine with explosive? Shall they go on, for time is precious, and finish that ten yards, or shall they stop awhile and see if they fire their countermine? Is it safe to do another two yards before they stop, or is it even now too late? Is that great tearing explosion coming at once, in the next second, or isn’t it coming at all? And all the time those glistening, sweating men carry on—pick, pick, pick. It is for the officer in charge to decide, and until then

Now, I don't for a moment think that David Jones regarded the matter at all in that light. An overmastering relief at being in a place where whizz-bangs cease from troubling and 7