The chamber was just—and only just—sufficient for the earth. When the last sackful[[8]] had been piled the chamber was practically full of earth from floor to ceiling and in every crevice.
[8]. See the photograph opposite. The sacks were mostly mattresses stolen from beds and quite unaccounted for also!
Orientation was not an easy matter. It was necessary of course only to bear in a general easterly direction as straight as possible. There were rough compasses galore in the camp, but it was very difficult to dig the tunnel straight and the compasses were too small to check errors accurately.
Towards the end the tunnel had become too twisted and hilly to permit any longer of the rope and basin method being used, and it was necessary to fill sacks and drag them back from the face. This method was even more wearisome and exasperating than the other. To wriggle back by oneself was bad enough: to wriggle back, and every yard or so pull a heavy sack after one, was infinitely more so. Nevertheless, all this practice had its advantages: it braced the muscles of the working-party for the great night when each one of them would have to worm his way through the tunnel, pushing a loaded pack in front of him.
At the tunnel mouth.