When we had been thus "rested" for some days we went and took over a nice new line, with lots of funny bits in it. The front line had three bits.
Left sector—Mine (exploded; possibly held by Bosch on far side).
Central sector—Mine? (unexploded; not held by Bosch anywhere).
Right sector—Mine (exploded; possibly held by Bosch on far side).
Our position seemed a little problematical. The left and right we satisfied ourselves about at once, but the centre was in a class by itself. We demanded an investigator, somebody with wide mine-sweeping experience preferred.
About 2 A.M. on our first day in, a figure loomed up through a snow-storm from the back of the central trench and asked forlornly if there might be any mines hereabouts. We admitted there might be, or again there might not. He questioned us precisely where it was suspected, and we told him "underneath." He scratched his head and announced that he was sent to look for it. His qualifications consisted apparently in his having coal-mined. But he seemed confident of detecting the quicker combustion sort, until he asked for necessary impedimenta. It seems that no good collier can detect an H.E. or any sort of mine without a pail of water, and a hole about 2,000 feet deep, and a pulley, and a rope ladder and a bratting-slat.
It's true we had some good holes in parts of the trench, where you probably go down 2,000 feet if you step off the footboards, and the rest of the stuff we might have contrived to improvise. But for the moment we had somehow run clean out of bratting-slats.
So we had to return the poor fellow with a request that all experts should be completed with bratting-slats before being sent to the front line. This request only produced the senseless interrogation, "What is a bratting-slat?" to which we have not yet bothered to reply. In the meantime if we are really sitting on a mine it seems quite a tame one. It hasn't as much as barked yet.
Just in our bit we aren't very well off for dug-outs; it isn't really what you'd call a representative sector from any point of view. But during a blizzard the other night a messenger who had mislaid himself took us for a serious trench. He made his way along, looking to right and left for some seat of authority until he came to a hole in the parados, two feet by one, where some fortunate fellow had ejected an ammunition box and was attempting to boil water on a night-light. The messenger bent low and asked huskily—
"Is this 'ere comp'ny edquarters?"