Now we are at work.  We almost wish that Freeman, Hardy, and Willis could see us.  Our buttons may occasionally lack lustre; we may cherish unorthodox notions as to the correct method of presenting arms; we may not always present an unbroken front on the parade-ground—­but we can dig!  Even the fact that we do not want to, cannot altogether eradicate a truly human desire to “show off.”  “Each man to his art,” we say.  We are quite content to excel in ours, the oldest in the world.  We know enough now about the conditions of the present war to be aware that when we go out on service only three things will really count—­to march; to dig; and to fire, upon occasion, fifteen rounds a minute.  Our rapid fire is already fair; we can march more than a little; and if men who have been excavating the bowels of the earth for eight hours a day ever since they were old enough to swing a pick cannot make short work of a Hampshire chalk down, they are no true members of their Trades Union or the First Hundred Thousand.

We have stuck to the phraseology of our old calling.

“Whaur’s ma drawer?” inquires Private Hogg, a thick-set young man with bandy legs, wiping his countenance with a much-tattooed arm.  He has just completed five strenuous minutes with a pick.  “Come away, Geordie, wi’ yon shovel!”

The shovel is preceded by an adjective.  It is the only adjective that A Company knows. (No, not that one.  The second on the list!)

Mr. George Ogg steps down into the breach, and sets to work.  He is a small man, strongly resembling the Emperor of China in a third-rate provincial pantomime.  His weapon is the spade.  In civil life he would have shovelled the broken coal into a “hutch,” and “hurled” it away to the shaft.  That was why Private Hogg referred to him as a “drawer.”  In his military capacity he now removes the chalky soil from the trench with great dexterity, and builds it up into a neat parapet behind, as a precaution against the back-blast of a “Black Maria.”

There are not enough, picks and shovels to go round—­cela va sans dire.  However, Private Mucklewame and others, who are not of the delving persuasion, exhibit no resentment.  Digging is not their department.  If you hand them a pick and shovel and invite them to set to work, they lay the pick upon the ground beside the trench and proceed to shovel earth over it until they have lost it.  At a later stage in this great war-game they will fight for these picks and shovels like wild beasts.  Shrapnel is a sure solvent of professional etiquette.

However, to-day the pickless squad are lined up a short distance away by the relentless Captain Wagstaffe, and informed—­

“You are under fire from that wood.  Dig yourselves in!”