[…] Bram De Groot, a domestique with the Dutch Rabobank team, drops out the back, one arm in the air. The team car responds instantly, swinging out of the line of support vehicles behind the peloton and racing, klaxon sounding, up to De Groot. The window opens and a hand emerges with a bidon (plastic drinks bottle). De Groot places it in his back pocket and the hand emerges with another. This one goes down the back of his shirt, and it is joined by five more. Then off he sprints to deliver them to thirsty team-mates. De Groot is one of the domestiques and this is their lot. They continually drop off, collecting bidons and sprinting back into the peloton with grotesquely bulging shirts.

In the night, or in a dark day the runner, on going in, touches a knob, which lights an electric glow-lamp in the middle; that shows him his way.

Where they[…]doe vnbarke themselues and vnlade their goods.

By the end of the day, we'd dug down to the level of the old basement floor.