[ makes sense she'd have to ask. it’s a job civilians rarely heard about.

mary chastised tommy once for bringing up the war when it wasn't appropriate, and she was right to. but now, as an unintended consequence, he thinks it's never appropriate with her. he's gone too far the other way, of not talking about it.

he conveys ‘are you sure you want to hear this?’ with a look, then clears his throat. ]

It’s what I did, when it needed doing.

[ which wasn't the whole time. tunnel warfare had its place in stalemated trenches. the great war changed rapidly, not half an experiment to see what worked and what didn't. ]

The tunnellers, clay-kickers, dug from our trenches, under no man's land, until we were below enemy lines. Set charges to blow them up from underneath. While we did it, the enemy was digging back the other way. There's a lot could go wrong. And when it went wrong, the feeling was we'd dug our own graves.

[ tl;dr got buried. dug himself out. still digging now. ]