Repairing damaged barbed wire in no-man’s-land was one of the most dangerous tasks for a WWI soldier. The wire might have been cut by a wiring party sent out by the enemy; it could have been damaged in a battle, or by the frequent barrages of artillery fire from enemy lines.

The work had to be very quietly done to avoid alerting the enemy whose trenches could be just a few yards away. This is why the wirers are “stealthy” (Line 4). The risk of attracting enemy fire was imminent.

The danger is shown in the poem when the Germans send up a flare. The men “stand rigid” (Line 5). Any movement would betray their presence; standing still “like posts” (Line 6) literally means they will—they hope—be indistinguishable from the posts to which the wire is affixed. Any sound or movement might betray their presence and position and trigger enemy fire.

Repairing the wire—and cutting enemy wire, which was also a task fell to a wiring party—was physically demanding work, as the words, “unravelling; twisting; hammering” (Line 3) imply. The men carried rolls of barbed wire and equipment such as shovels and muffled mallets, as well as steel pickets. They used the mallets to drive in the posts that supported the wire; this is what makes the “muffled thud” in Line 3.