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 indifference to him if another Hun came in and cut the wire, so long as he wasn’t on hand to be cut too. So it was fortunate perhaps that David had overslept himself, as one minute after his arrival in the upper earth there was a deafening thunderous roar. A great mass of earth, roots, wood, and other fragments flew upwards and then came raining down again. The infantry were across in a flash—the curtain of shrapnel descended—and the staff had dinner.

There were two things that no one ever cleared up satisfactorily. One was the presence of a miner’s pick, of a pattern different to that in use in the British Army, in the tool dump of a certain Tunnelling Company. But it was a very small thing, and no one worried.

The other was the presence of a German Engineer Officer in the mine shaft with his helmet, or part of it, in his brain. Various opinions were given by various people; but as they were all wrong, they don’t matter. Anyway, the mine had been most successful—and everybody shook hands with everybody.

All, that is, except David Jones, who was