only the end would come quickly--nothing else really mattered.

I often wondered what was in the minds of the other men. Many of them
looked anxious, but on the whole they were normal in their behaviour.
They grumbled and quarrelled much as usual and talked rather more than
usual--but so did I, in spite of my intense mental agitation.

The sound of firing grew louder.

We marched to an extensive R.E. park and saw-mill near a railway siding.
We had to dismantle the machinery and load everything of any value on to
a train. For several hours five of us dragged a huge cylinder and piston
along the ground. We toiled and perspired. We made a ramp of heavy
wooden beams in front of the train and then we slowly pushed the iron
mass into a truck. We went back and, raising a big fly-wheel on its edge
and supporting it with a wooden beam under each axle, we rolled it
painfully along, swaying from side to side.

Then there came the long-drawn familiar whine, and the black smoke arose
behind some trees a hundred yards away and the thunder-clap followed. A
jagged piece of steel came whizzing by and lodged in a stack of timber
behind us.

We pushed the wheel up the ramp and returned to fetch heavy coils of
wire, bundles of picks and shovels, sacks and barrels of nails. Our
backs and shoulders ached, our hands and finger-tips were sore.

Another shell came whining over. It burst by a little cottage. Its
thunder made our ears sing. The fragments of flying metal made us duck
or scatter behind the stacks.