But no machine-gun spoke on that sector, not once while the wire was going up. Before half-past seven "the Peacemaker" came along to me with orders to lead my men off to Stinking Sap. The wiring was finished. There had been a hundred and fifty men at it, and at that moment the last of 'em was entering Stinking Sap--casualties, nil. "The Peacemaker" marched his half-Company round the end of the wire above Petticoat Lane, and I took mine round the end in front of Stinking Sap-head. Then we wheeled round to the rear of the new wire entanglement and marched out again, immediately in rear of it, till "the Peacemaker" and I met, as we had previously met in front. So we took up our second and final position and got down to it exactly as we had done in the first position. When the O.C. reported that we were in position, "C" Company marched out, half from each end of the line, under their own officers, but with the O.C.R.E. in command, and his officers helping. They were at three yards' interval. There was a peg for every man, and the first operation was for each man to dig a hole in which he could take cover. It had all been thought out beforehand, and every man knew just what to do. Their instructions were to dig as hard as ever they knew how, but silently, till they got cover. All the sections were working against each other, and the O.C. Company was giving prizes for the first, second, and third sections, in order of priority, to get underground. We couldn't see them, of course, and had all the occupation we cared for, thank you, in looking after our line. I was glad to find, too, that we could only hear them when we listened. They were wonderfully quiet. It's a wet clayey soil, and they had been carefully drilled never to let one tool touch another. I am told they went at it like tigers, and that the earth fairly flew from their shovels. In our line there wasn't a sound, and every man's eyes were glued on his front. The evening had been amazingly quiet, nothing but desultory rifle fire, and unusually little of that. At a quarter to nine a Boche machine-gun dead opposite the centre of my half-Company began to traverse our line--his real objective, of course, being, not our line, but the line of trench, the old fire trench, in our rear. I know now that at that moment the slowest of "C's" diggers was underground. That burst of fire did not get a single man; not a scratch.