The Telegraph Operator's Bombproof

A grass-grown mound with a plank doorway, a flooded borrow pit before it and a little frame bridge laid over the water: the bombproof built for the telegraph operator in the trenches, photographed by Haas & Peale with their signature on the plate.

The wire was the siege's nervous system — orders forward, casualties and progress back — and its operator earned a roof of earth like a magazine's. The care spent on one man's dugout says exactly what his traffic was worth.