Over The Top
For the next four hours, you sleep soundly, with few interruptions, and awake only once to scratch the lice that has now nested in your hair.
– “C’mon, wake up lad!” you hear from afar. “C’mon…get up!” you hear again, as you open your eyes and see the familiar face of Lieutenant Jarvis hovering just over your head.
– “Let’s go, lad. I need your help right now!” he says in a hurried voice. You quickly sit in your cot and rub the sleep from your eyes.
– “Sir?” you croak hoarsely.
– “The Germans are planning an attack later this morning.” he explains.
– “What time is it?” you ask dreamily.
– “Shortly after four…Now listen, we’ve found out that the Germans are going to attack in just a few hours. The men are preparing for the assault, but I need more men to work the sap.”
At the mention of the word ‘sap’, you immediately regain all of your senses. Indeed, one of the most dangerous tasks of any soldier is that of having to dig a tunnel far below the surface of No Man’s Land to place an explosive charge near the enemy’s trenches. You’ve heard countless stories of men blown to bits from an enemy mine or, worse still, buried alive as a result of a caved-in tunnel.
– “No time for lollygagging!” warns Lieutenant Jarvis, “I want you to report to Corporal Hunter in the Leicester Tunnel and help him set up the explosives. Hurry man, every minute counts!”
Discarding your pack and rifle, you exit the dugout and run over to the Leicester Tunnel. Once there, you notice long lines of dirty, sweating, chalk-covered men, removing earth from the tunnel and sending dozens of boxes filled with explosives forward. You snake your way inside the tunnel and, fifteen minutes later, arrive at a narrow dead end.
– “Corporal Hunter?” you ask wearily.
– “That’s me!” replies a short, balding man, covered from head to toe in the muddy chalk.
– “I’ve been sent by Lieutenant Jarvis.” you affirm.
– “Good! Take this shovel and start digging!” he snaps, “I’ve got to go to the surface and when I come back, I want to see ten more feet of tunnel dug up. Now move!”
Grabbing the nearest shovel, you begin piling the loose chalk into small wheelbarrows which are quickly whisked away. For over an hour, you toil in the tunnel by the light of a flickering lantern.
At one point, you suddenly hear a noise coming from directly ahead of you. Beyond the end of the tunnel, you hear a muffled scraping sound.