"That's the sort," rejoined his officer. "Now, look here. Do any of you fellows remember if there were other dug-outs close to this?"
"There was an entrance about twenty yards to the left of this one, sir," said Malcolm. "I noticed that it was clear, for when I came up our fellows were hauling out a batch of Huns."
"That's our direction," decided Captain Nicholson. "It's not much use trying to open up the tunnel at which the Boches were working when we surprised them. It leads towards Messines Ridge, and I guess there's not much tunnelling left there. I should imagine they were ignorant of the actual results of the mine, or they would have given it up as a bad job."
Armed with mattocks and picks, Malcolm, M'Turk, and M'Kane attacked the side of the entrance-tunnel at a spot a few yards beneath the choke. The ground was clayey and easy to work, but in the absence of shoring material there was a grave risk of the new tunnel caving in. At the end of an hour's strenuous activity a tunnel about twelve feet long, and sufficiently large to enable a man to crawl along, had been excavated.
"Any luck?" enquired Captain Nicholson for the twentieth time during that hour.
"No, sir," replied Malcolm, who was working at the head of the sap and cautiously dislodging soil, which, in turn, was picked up by M'Turk and passed out so as not to obstruct the portion of the tunnel already dug.
The ground vibrated under the impact of a heavy shell thirty or forty feet overhead. Although the bombardment had decreased in violence the Huns were still sending heavy stuff across at irregular intervals.
"Hanged if I like this job," soliloquized Malcolm. "I thought the whole show would collapse that time. By Jove, something's going!"
Making a vain attempt to back out of the confined space, Carr felt the ground giving way beneath his bent legs.
"What's up, Digger?" enquired M'Turk, hearing his companion's exclamation.