There was an awesome pause, then the officer gave a sharp, half-whispered order. Instantly, boldly, the picks were at their work again. It was a desperate race for time—here in this cramped tunnel—in the smothering depths of mother earth; and no man's life was worth a moment's purchase. Yet iron self-discipline prevailed. The sappers worked with almost frenzied haste and vigour. After ten minutes of furious, exhausting labour, they were allowed to pause. The chests of the toilers heaved painfully; some of them tried to hold their breath; others shook their heads impatiently, as if to stop the singing in their ears. They wanted to listen, to hear, and know their fate.
No sound reached them. It was a moment of agonizing tension. Then, nearer than before, they heard the picks again. Suddenly the sound ceased. The invaders had completed their work. There was no time to lose. At a sign from the officer, who brushed a handkerchief across his face and drew a laboured breadth, a grim-faced sergeant began to crawl back swiftly to the distant opening of the tunnel for the dynamite. Another and more torturing pause ensued.
Which mine would be exploded first?
It was an affair of minutes, then of seconds. Their mine was not yet ready. But duty held them to their ground. Though hell should burst upon them on the instant, the flaming portals must be faced.
Out in the open, those who watched and waited suddenly heard a thunderous detonation. A huge mass of earth and chalk rose high in the air, and clouds of whitish smoke spread skyward in the full glare of the searchlights. Three engineers, half doubled up, now came rushing from the tunnel to the outlet, bursting among a little group of officers, who staggered back with horror in their faces.
"Done for ... countermined!" One of the sappers gasped out the fateful words, then sank exhausted on the ground.
"My God!" exclaimed Helmore, the officer in charge of the relief party, falling back a pace. Then, promptly recovering his self-control, he cried: "Forward to the rescue. Some of our men may be alive!" He himself dashed into the tunnel, followed by half a dozen men. At a little distance, the narrow avenue was blocked. The miners were entombed! but an indirect opening had been made by the concussion, which gave the rescuing party access to another tunnel. Following this, and finding it intact, Helmore, in advance of the party, raised his lanthorn and saw in the distance an exposed angle of a massive concrete wall. He understood at once that the exploded mine, working in a lateral direction as well as upward, had exposed the caponiere, or covered lodgment under the counter-scarp, which Wardlaw had sunk in that position designedly for the protection of the Fort. Therefore, the holders of the Fort, in a measure, were hoist with their own petard. Their mine had exploded first, but at the same time it had exposed a point against which a subterranean attack now might be directed.
The moat encircling the Fort was twenty-eight feet wide and eighteen deep. Strongly fortified everywhere, a special feature of its strength lay in the caponiere gallery. The walls of this gallery, constructed beneath the entire counter-scarp, were some seven feet thick. On this, the South side, as also on the East, the gallery was divided by concrete partitions into five communicating cells or chambers. These chambers, as Lieutenant Helmore knew from the confidential plans of the defence works, communicated, cell with cell, by low and narrow doorways. From the last of the five cells, by a narrow flight of steps, could be reached a door of massive steel, and on the other side of that door a passage five feet wide passed beneath the rampart and the moat into the interior of the Fort itself. This communication, of course, was intended to enable defenders of the Fort to reach the caponieres which jutted into the moat at intervals, and thence fire upon any troops that sought to bridge it.
The enormous importance of his discovery made Helmore forget for a moment the fate or peril of his ill-starred comrades—buried as they were in the adjacent débris. Indeed, it was apparent that nothing could be done for them. Their dreadful fate was sealed, and the faint groans that at first reached the ears of the would-be rescuers soon entirely ceased to be heard.
Helmore, after a moment's pause, sent a man back with news of the discovery to his commanding officer, who instantly grasped the requirements of the situation. He issued certain rapid orders, and a hundred men darted down the hill in prompt obedience. Meanwhile, the relief sappers, guided by Helmore, crept through the narrow tunnel into which an opening had been forced by the explosion. Without losing an instant, the Engineers began to chisel several holes in the exposed section of the concrete wall. A charge of dynamite was passed along, and all made ready. The men rushed back and waited. The crack and crash of a violent explosion followed, and the sappers, hurrying forward, followed by other troops, found that a broad gap had been made in the gallery of the caponiere. Through this breach they crept and crawled, to find themselves in the first of the five cells, or gallery-sections, that have been described.