THE SHELL OF THE LOBSTER
'Corporal Scott, how many bags this morning?'
'Eighty, sir/
'We'd better make it eighty-one to-morrow
morning/
'Very good, sir/
Corporal Scott was a little man. In peace-time he
was the Colonel's groom. In war-time he had been
showing a leader's qualities* Here he was promoted
and a foreman. His was a hard trade: shifting the
gravel and the sand, feeding the mixers, bringing up
the bags of cement.
'What do your infantrymen say about all this
mason's work?'
'They like it a lot... even prefer it to exercises
and manoeuvres/
'I see you have a little narrow-gauge railway for
transport/
'Yes, we found it with a local contractor. He told
us that twenty-five years ago his father had hired out
the same rails and trucks to the British Army. ... "I
shall leave it to my son," he told us, "one never
knows. . . /''
A little further off, the excavators were scooping
out huge anti-tank ditches. They worked, these
giant machines, with the movements of timid
mastodons. One of them scooped out the earth and
threw it back from the defence side, a second built up
the slope on the enemy side and a third, a sort of
enormous shovel, heaped the earth along the posts to