‘Time for a break, Penn,’ he called out.
‘In a tick – I’ll just finish shifting this lot.’
Thirty-four years old, Barnes was not only the oldest member of the crew, he was also the smallest. Barely five foot seven inches tall, he was small-boned and slim, but his frame was wiry and on a long-term endurance basis he could probably outlast the other three on sheer will-power alone. His face was lean, clean-shaven, and above prominent cheekbones his brown eyes were still alert and watchful as he studied Reynolds and Davis. In size there wasn’t a great deal to choose between them; they were both large, heavily-built men, but there was an enormous difference in temperament. Whereas Davis, the ex-miner, was subject to moods of melancholy, Reynolds could be relied upon to carry out any task he was set until he dropped, showing neither enthusiasm nor depression at any stage. As for thirty-year-old Corporal Penn, he was easily the most intelligent and best-educated of the four men. At the outbreak of war he could have obtained a commission but he had turned it down for reasons which were never quite clear. Slim and tall, he was the most light-hearted of the crew, and at the same time the most sensitive. Dropping his shovel, he wobbled over to Barnes in an exaggerated manner.
‘There should be extra pay for this, there really should. Working underground doesn’t come within my agreed sphere of duties, you know. I’ll have to look it up in King’s Regs. Mind if we take a stroll along the promenade?’
Along the promenade was Penn’s version for walking through the tunnel, so Barnes got up off the hull where he had been sitting and walked with Penn, his torch beam showing the way. As soon as they were out of earshot of the other two men Penn began talking.
‘I don’t like the look of Davis. I don’t think he can stand much more of this.’
‘He’ll have to – it’s the same for all of us and we may be through to the other side any moment now.’
‘Do you really think so? That wall could be twenty feet thick. I imagine the Germans blew in the entrance.’
‘It looks like it – or they might have been bombing the railway and dropped one which started a landslide. It doesn’t make much difference now – we’ve just got to get far enough through to be able to use the two-pounder.’
‘The two-pounder?’ Penn stopped in the middle of the rail track. ‘You’re joking, of course?’
‘Look, Penn, by the time we see daylight we’re going to be pretty tired. And in any case we’ve been away from the troop for well over twenty-four hours. God knows what’s been happening on the outside but our job is to get back as fast as we can – and the way to do that is to shoot our way but when we can. We’ll wait until we have a hole big enough for me to crawl through and do a recce. Then Davis can take his mind off things by shelling the rest out of the way.’
‘Just so long as Davis lasts out the course – and always assuming we ever reach your little hole.’
‘Now you’re beginning to talk like Davis. It doesn’t seem to have struck any of you that being cooped up inside here is a damned sight safer than being bombed by Stukas.’
Penn glanced at Barnes in amazement. He had really meant what he had said, Penn felt sure of it. The idea that they might be trapped inside this tunnel until they were out of water, out of food, out of lighting when the batteries ran down – none of this seemed to have crossed Barnes’ mind. In his usual way he just assumed that they would make it, that it was only a matter of time before they broke through that terrible wall. Well, if faith moved mountains, Barnes was likely to move that wall, and their tank commander had a habit of backing up bis faith with planning and forethought: they were still enjoying meals of bully beef and biscuits because of Barnes’ insistence that they should always carry provisions for one" week. He turned and followed Barnes back to the rock face, sensing trouble as soon as they arrived. Davis had apparently been waiting for their return and now the burly gunner was glaring at his sergeant, his voice an insubordinate growl.
‘We’ll never get through this bloody wall.’
‘No, we won’t – not if you just stand there,’ Barnes agreed mildly. ‘So get on with it.’
‘We’re wasting our time.,.’
‘No, Davis – we aren’t. At the moment you are the one who is wasting time, so get on with it.’
Barnes’ voice was still very mild. He stood close to his large gunner with a relaxed air, his eyes never leaving Davis’.
‘We’re going to die down here – die, did you hear me? And one day they’ll open up this bleedin’ tunnel and find four corpses – four skeletons.’ His voice was close to hysteria now, his mouth and hands working as though on the edge of a complete breakdown. ‘I’m a miner – I know what this means. I’ve…’
‘Davis!’ Barnes’ tone was sharper now. ‘You haven’t by any chance thought yourself into thinking that this is a mine shaft, have you?’
‘No, but…’
‘So, instead of being hundreds of feet below the surface we’re actually at ground level – right? The fact is, Davis, that your being a miner is just about as relevant as the fact that Penn was once a draughtsman. Now, do you expect Reynolds to shift that boulder all by himself or are you going to give him a hand?’
‘It may take a fortnight to shift that lot,’ Davis persisted stubbornly. ‘There could be hundreds of…’
‘Davis, I’m beginning to lose patience with you. It’s just possible that it will take all four of us to break through, so we can’t afford any spare wheels round here, and that’s what you are at the moment. For the third time, I’m ordering you to get on with it.’
‘Why not have a go at the other end – the wall may be thinner there.’
Barnes’ face tightened. He prodded a stiff finger hard into Davis’ chest, punctuating his words with prods.
‘You have been given an order three times and three times you have refused to carry it out. As soon as we get back you’re on a charge. In the meantime you will do your bit with the rest of us, and since you’ve wasted five minutes gassing, your next break period will be ten minutes instead of fifteen. Give Reynolds a hand with that boulder at once.’
He turned away and went back to sit on the tank hull, checking his watch to see whether his fifteen minutes was nearly up, putting his hands flat on either side of his body as he watched Davis start work again. Beside him Penn grinned and whispered, ‘He thinks he can be Bolshie now we’re on our own.’ But Barnes made no reply and his face was grim. It had been a close run thing. They only needed one rotten apple in the barrel for the infection to spread, and the most contagious infection of all is fear. Outwardly, Barnes remained perfectly confident, his every word and gesture indicating clearly that it was only a matter of some hard slogging before they reached the outside world, but inwardly he didn’t like the look of it. They were marooned in the centre of a battlefield and the war could rage backwards and forwards over the front for weeks as it had done a quarter of a century earlier. While that went on there would be a certain shortage of people to go round digging out buried tunnels, even supposing that the idea seemed important to them. There was no real problem of air – the tunnel was long enough for them to breathe inside it for weeks – but their water and food supplies would only last for several days, to say nothing of Bert’s batteries. And when the batteries went they would be plunged into darkness, which would make working on the wall face almost impossible. For the first few hours of their entombment Barnes had mainly fretted about being cut off from his troop, but as the hours passed and they entered on a new day he found his mind beginning to think like Davis’, and the analogy of the mine disaster was only too apt, which was why he had shut up Davis at the earliest possible moment. He glanced at his watch again, nodded to Penn, and went forward to pick up his shovel.