Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/158

 So I went. Undoubtedly there were noises—very strange subterranean noises, in front of that battery. Moreover, the sounds seemed to come from different places. At times they were very loud; at others they ceased. The excitement soon became intense. Stout officers lay all over the ground with their ears pressed in the mud. The commandant of the battery ran round in small circles saying Pouff! distractedly. In fact every one said Pouff! to every one else. It became the password of the morning. Then at last the crucial moment arrived. The centre of the storm, so to speak, had been located—the place where, so far as we could tell, the noise seemed consistently loudest. At that point the Belgians started to dig; and instantly a triumphant shout rent the air. The place was an old disused shaft, boarded over and covered with a thin layer of earth. At last it was open, and from it there issued loud and clear a dreadful tapping.

“A network of galleries,” cried an interpreter excitedly. “Probably old shafts reaching the German lines. We are lost.” He and the commandant had a pouffing match in their despair. But now the noise became