The dreary hours dragged on. I tried hard to fall back into my former state of blurred consciousness, but the very attempt itself frustrated the effort. I was full of growing resentment against my partner. My dormant anger was aroused, it had found an object and, against all reason and fairness, demanded vengeance. I pretended to stumble and jerked the sleeper so as to hurt his bruised shoulder.
"'Ere, what yer doin' of?" he shouted, in great pain. "Christ Almighty—be a bit careful!"
In a moment I regretted what I had done and said, "Sorry, I stumbled over something—I hope I didn't hurt you!" I felt ashamed and all my resentment vanished. Thereupon I became too oppressed in spirit even to look at my watch.
We had been splashing and squelching to and fro, I did not know how long, when an officer arrived. He stood still for a moment and watched us work, and then he said:
"The job's got to be done this afternoon, my lads, but I'll try to get you a day off to-morrow. Who's in charge of the party?"
We pointed to Sergeant Hyndman. He was sitting in an improvised shelter in front of a fire, sipping hot tea. He had spent the greater part of the day there and had not observed the arrival of the officer, who was walking slowly towards him. Suddenly he jumped up and there was an exchange of words which we could not hear, although we tried hard to do so. The Sergeant came over to us, looking rather disconcerted, so we were able to guess the nature of the conversation.
We felt greatly encouraged and worked with renewed vigour. The stacks vanished one by one. Time appeared to slip by with gathering speed. A kind of common rhythm seemed to pervade our movements as we plodded to and fro with mechanical regularity.
The officer went up to the stacks from which we were removing the sleepers and made a mental calculation. "Only four hundred sleepers left now, boys—that's five apiece or ten to each pair. You'll soon be finished, and I've ordered lorries to take you home!"
His kindness did us good and we worked with a kind of grim determination. My partner was coming to the end of his strength. His knees were bent and from time to time he staggered, jerking the sleeper so as to make me wince with pain. But he kept up obstinately. We counted the sleepers as we received them—one, two, three and so on. This occupied our minds and the time passed all the more quickly. Eight ... nine ... ten! At last our work was done! "Thank God," said my partner with deep conviction. We rested against one of the newly erected stacks, but it was not long before Sergeant Hyndman came striding up and addressed us angrily. He had evidently been snubbed by the officer and was giving relief to his mortification by bullying us.
"What yer doin' there? Swingin' it on yer mates, are yer? Call yerselves sportsmen, do yer? Get back an' bloody well do yer bit!"