English Translation
They stood idle, instead of putting their shoulder to the wheel.
I don’t understand what the Japanese sentence means, but that’s OK, because I don’t understand what the English sentence means, either!
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@mike-lima
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, “put one’s shoulder to the wheel” means “work hard” or “make a strenuous effort”. – A cart is bogged down in a pond. You need to rescue the cart by pushing the wheel by your shoulder like tackle in a rugby game. That’s the etymology.
一肌脱ぐ（ひとはだぬぐ）in the original Japanese sentence is also an idiom, and it is still commonly used. The literal translation is “to peel off one’s skin”, and the meaning is closer to “roll up one’s sleeves” in English. 一肌脱ぐ is often used when you work hard to help someone else or to fulfill a (project) mission.
肌 is skin, but the Japanese idiom actually means “to take off one’s clothes (or Kimono 着物)”. This picture by Hiroshige Utagawa (歌川広重) is the exact image of 一肌脱ぐ.
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