Now that the new parapet had been heightened and strengthened, the casualties behind it had almost ceased, and the Tearaways were quite reasonably flattering themselves on the worst of the work being done and the worst of the dangers over.  It appeared to them that the trench now provided quite sufficient shelter to fulfill both its ostensible object of allowing relief parties to move to and from the listening-post, and also their own private undertaking of attaining the dead General; but the O.C. and company commanders did not look on it in that light.

The order was to construct a firing trench, and that meant a good deal more work than had been done, so reliefs were kept going and the work progressed steadily all night, a good deal of impetus being given to it by some light German field-guns which commenced to scatter high-explosive shrapnel over the open ground.

The shooting, fortunately, was not very accurate, no doubt because, by the light of the flares, it was difficult for the German observers to direct their fire.  But the hint was enough for the Tearaways, and they knew that daybreak would bring more accurate and more constant artillery fire upon the new position.

The British gunners had been warned not to open fire unless called upon, because a working party was in the open; but now the batteries were telephoned to with a request for shrapnel on the German parapets to keep down some of the heavy rifle fire.

Since the gunners had already registered the target of the German trench, their fire was just as accurate by night as it would be by day, and shell after shell burst over the German parapet, sweeping their trench with showers of shrapnel.

While all this was going on the men at the listening-post had tackled the job of driving their sap out to the German General.  This work was done in a different fashion from the digging of the new trench.

The listening-post was merely a pit in the ground, originally a large shell crater, and deepened and widened until it was sufficiently large to hold half-a-dozen men.  At one side of the pit the men commenced with pick and spade to hack out an opening like a very narrow doorway.

As the earth was broken down and shoveled back, the doorway gradually grew to be a passage.  In this two men at a time worked in turn, the one on the right-hand side making a narrow cut that barely gave him shoulder-play, the second man on the left working a few paces in the rear and widening the passage.

Necessarily it was slow work, because only these two men could reach the face of the cut, and because it had to be of sufficient depth to allow a man to work upright without his head showing above the ground.  But because they worked in short reliefs and put every ounce of energy into their task, they made surprising and unusual progress.

Lieutenant Riley, who was in command of the listening-post for that night, left the workers to themselves, both because it was necessary for him to keep a sharp look-out in order to give warning of any attempt to rush the working party, and because officially he was not supposed to know anything of any sap to an officially unrecognized dead German General.