It was bad enough to get rid of the rocks and the trees, but it was even worse to dispose of the wire. Much of this was rusty, and they had to be very careful how they handled the stuff for fear of being scratched and getting their clothing torn to ribbons. Even as it was, the most substantial of the uniforms worn by the engineers did not last very long, and had to be replaced.
The abandoned mines were spread over a large area, and because of the war were in such condition that only a small portion of the various passageways were used by the Americans. The engineers had their quarters in one long passageway, which some one had named The Subway, while some of the infantry were quartered not a long distance off in what was known as The Tube.
These quarters were, as the chums had agreed, perfectly safe from bombardment by the enemy. But they were rather damp and chilly, and were invaded by hordes of mine rats with which the troops had constant battles.
“My gracious! I don’t know but that the rats are just about as bad as the cooties,” cried Phil, one day after one of the rodents had run over him while he was trying to take a nap.
“Don’t say a word about the cooties!” Ben returned, scratching his back on one of the upright posts in the mine. “I never thought I was going to be subject to anything like this when I joined the army.”
“Oh, forget it and look pleasant!” cried Dave, who sat on a box mending a shirt by the light of a candle. He, too, had had his dose of these little pests, which seemed to have descended upon all the armies like a plague.
Two things were in the engineers’ favor—the Germans seemed to have withdrawn from that vicinity and the weather remained unusually fine. At night there was a full moon which bathed the country for miles around in beauty.
Dave had put in a hard day’s work, and in addition had been asked to go on an errand by Captain Obray, who had left an important notebook at one of the headquarters he had visited. This notebook the young lieutenant was now carrying in one of his pockets.
“If it wasn’t for those guns banging away in the distance one would never know a war was on by looking at such a scene as this,” remarked Dave, on this evening, as he walked toward the mine entrance with Roger and some of the others.
“It certainly is beautiful,” was the reply of the senator’s son. “Almost too nice to retire. Wish we were at Crumville with the girls.”