The Sergeant did not know.
"What did they make us bring our shovels for?"
A voice, mocking such a naïve questioner, answered:
"Don't yer know the army be now?"
We broke down a section of the fence. Two men were assigned to each stack. They loaded each sleeper on to the shoulders of a couple of men who carried it across the railway lines into the field, where it would be received and stacked by other men.
Hour by hour we trudged to and fro in pairs, bearing our wet and heavy loads. We lost consciousness of everything except driving snow, squelching mud, aching backs and sore shoulders. When one shoulder became so sore that mere contact with our load was intensely painful, we changed over to the other, until that too became bruised, and then we would change back again. And so on, hour by hour.
Our legs seemed as heavy as lead and yet they seemed to move of their own accord without any effort of the will. Our minds became blurred and numb—a numbness that was broken from time to time by a sharp stab of pain whenever a sleeper was placed across our shoulders.
"For Christ's sake, let's 'ave a blow," said my partner suddenly.
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter-past ten—nearly two hours more till lunch!
We observed that only a small number of men were working, and my partner blurted out: