A worn enamel basin holding coiled rope and a trowel on a brick-red surface.

Original artwork, not a still

Johnny Shellshocked

In France, we dug trenches ten miles long. We took earth from here and made hills there. We moved entire fields. You wouldn't believe what we did. It's possible. It's just hard work.

— The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain • 1995

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker boasts of impossible-sounding feats in France: trenches ten miles long, earth carried from one place to build hills elsewhere, whole fields shifted. They tell the listener disbelief is understandable, then land on a plain moral: it can be done, and it simply takes hard work.

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