y were in an occupied working. He counted on a certain amount of
delay and doubt on their part when their picks first pierced his wall,
and he counted on that pause again to give him time to escape. So he
put the cigarette away, and immediately was overwhelmed with a craving
for it. He fought it for five minutes that felt like five hours, and
felt his desire grow tenfold with each minute. It nearly drove him to
doing what all the risk, all the discomfort of his cramped position,
all the danger, had not done--to creep out and fire the mine without
waiting for that last instant when the picks would break through. It
could make little difference, he argued to himself, in the movements of
those above. What could five minutes more, or ten, or even fifteen,
matter now? It might even be that he was endangering the success of
the explosion by waiting, and it was perhaps wiser to crawl out at once
and fire the mine--and he could safely light a cigarette then as soon
as he was round the corner of the T. So he argued the matter out,
fingering his cigarette-case and longing for the taste of the tobacco,
and yet knowing in his inmost heart that he would not move, despite his
arguments, until the first pick came through. He heard the strokes
draw nearer and nearer, and now he held his breath and strained his
eyes as each one was delivered. The instant he had waited for came in
exactly the fashion he had expected--a thud, a thread of yellow light
piercing the black dark, a grunt of surprise from the pick-wielder at
the lack of resistance to his stroke. All this was just what he had
expected, had known would happen. The next stroke would show the
digger that he was entering some hole. Then there would be cautious
investigation, the sending back word to an officer, the slow and
careful enlargement of the opening. And before that moment came the
Subaltern would be down his tunnel, and outside, and pressing the
switch . . .

But his programme worked out no further than that first instant and
that first gleam of light. He saw the gleam widen suddenly as the pick
was withdrawn, heard another quick blow, saw the round spot of light
run out in little cracks and one wide rift, and suddenly the wall fell
in, and he was staring straight into the German gallery, with a dark
figure silhouetted clear down to the waist against the light of an
electric bulb-lamp which hung from the gallery roof. For an instant
the Subaltern's blood fr