Page:Walker (1888) The Severn Tunnel.djvu/189

116 of training, and accustomed as they were to work in dangerous positions, and knowing every time they went below that each man took his life in his hand, they still went cheerfully to their work, and were no doubt as brave as Englishmen always are. But to understand how easily a panic spreads, under the circumstances, it would be necessary one’s self to be under the river, a mile away from the shaft, confined in a narrow space, with rocks dripping or running with water all round, with only the light of a stray candle here and there, and the most extraordinary sounds that ever greeted the ears of mortal man: first from the east, and then from the west, heavy timbers thrown down suddenly, with a noise that re-echoed through the whole of the works; then a stray shot fired in one direction, then a complete salvo of 50 or 60 shots from the other—every sound totally different from the sounds in the open air—all the surroundings such as must produce a feeling of awe and tension of the nerves; and then, when men following their dangerous employment heard others running by them below, shouting to them to escape for their lives for the river was in, would any man pause to consider, when he thought his life could only be saved by the rapidity of his flight, from an enemy against which he could not contend?

I do not blame the men for the panic; but I had a bad quarter of an hour myself, when it seemed as though the three years’ work was after all ending in failure.