Explore "The Soldier's Song" by Alan Monaghan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Silence. It was so intense that he could hear the candle burning, the wick hissing and spitting in its little pool of fat. It flickered on the pale, strained face of Sergeant Page, who knelt with his eyes closed and his whole being focused on the tubes that snaked out of his ears. He looked like he was listening for a heartbeat in the earth, and Stephen wondered how he could hear it over the thunder of his own. The others were as bad – all frozen with picks and shovels in their hands, all afraid to breathe, all rolling their eyes to the ceiling, waiting for it to come crashing down. They had all heard the voice too, as clear and crisp as if it had come from just down the tunnel. But speaking in German.
He raised his eyes to the roof. Ninety feet of earth held up with a few planks and boards. Ninety feet above, men were walking around in the open air; shells were falling, feet marching, guns pounding. But no sound penetrated this deep. The tunnel was as silent as the grave.