Page:Lieutenant and Others (1915) by Sapper.djvu/106

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94
THE MINE

tired, another takes his place; there is no pause. Each yard as it is taken out is shored up with mine cases and sheeting, otherwise the whole thing may collapse on your head. As you go on, your hands against the sides, you will find possibly an opening on one side or the other—the opening of another gallery, a gallery with a T head at the end, all finished. No earth is being carted from here, there is for the time no one in it; it is a listening gallery, and with the listening gallery and all it stands for we come to grips with the real drama of mining. Were it merely the mechanical removal of earth, the mechanical making of a tunnel from one place to another, it would perhaps be a safer occupation, but just as inspiring to write about as a new cure for corns. Moreover, it was from a listening gallery that David Jones—still, all in good time.

Mining, like most games, is one at which two can play, and it is not a matter of great surprise that neither side will allow the other one to play unmolested. Therefore, where there is mining there also is countermining, and the two operations are not exactly the