caught. So everything possible had to be done to avoid raising any
suspicion of what was on foot in the minds of the watchful Germans. The
troops had to work at high pressure and in absolute silence. The R.E.
who were to lay the tapes were the first to go forward after the
covering troops; then came the wire carriers, and, as soon as the R.E.
had had time to get the tapes into position, out went the diggers, who,
after reaching the line, had to be spaced out at working distances along
the whole front. We who stayed behind spent some anxious hours. However
complete the arrangements and however perfectly executed there was yet a
chance that some enterprising and inquisitive German patrol might find
out what was happening in time to give one of their local commanders an
opportunity of hindering our work. We had to make such arrangements as
would give the appearance that we were doing nothing unusual, that we
were in fact excruciatingly normal. There must be neither more noise nor
less than on an ordinary night, and so the artillery and machine guns
must fire their accustomed bursts into the likely places in the German
lines.

It was a great success. By dawn there was a trench, continuous at least
in appearance along the whole front, at intervals there were rifle and
Lewis gun posts in it; and if there were places where it was preferable
to pass along in the attitude of the serpent after his expulsion from
the Garden of Eden and ever since, there was nothing to show the Germans
which they were. There was wire in front, and the troops got back
without more casualties than averaged as a result of the ordinary
nightly strafes.

Though we took on many tougher jobs later I was never again anxious as
to the result.