by Keely Hutton
“Of the soldiers we’ve talked to,” George said, pulling up a chair next to Thomas at the table. He handed Thomas a cup of tea.
“We’ve talked to hundreds,” Thomas said. He knew George was trying to help; they all were, but Thomas didn’t want to talk about their failed search for his brother. He wanted to curl up on his bunk with Max and wallow in his despair. He wished Bagger and the men hadn’t taken the terrier into the trenches for some friendly wagers. Petting Max always calmed his nerves when panic at the thought of never finding James overwhelmed him.
“But there are thousands we haven’t talk to yet,” Frederick said. “Hundreds of thousands.” Frederick had only been helping them look for five days. Reality hadn’t loosened his grip on hope like it had Thomas’s. Miles of trenches and hundreds of discouraging answers had only served to pull James farther from Thomas’s reach.
* * *
George understood Thomas’s disappointment, but he also knew wallowing in despair helped nothing. If he’d given in every time life kicked him in the teeth, he would have died years ago. He slung a bony arm around Thomas’s shoulders. “You know what you need?”
“To find my brother,” Thomas muttered.
“Besides that.” George retrieved a small leather cup and three six-sided dice from his kit bag. “You need to relax for a couple hours.” He shook the dice in the cup and then tossed them onto the table. “We all do. Get down here, Mouse. We need your artistic skills.”
Charlie closed the door to Poppy’s cage and lowered himself from his bunk into an empty chair next to Thomas.
“You too, Eton,” George said. “And bring that fancy fountain pen of yours and one of those handkerchiefs you use to polish your boots.”
Frederick closed his notebook and joined them at the table. “What are we playing?”
“Crown and anchor.”
“The army doesn’t allow that game. What about Bagger and the others?” Frederick asked.
“If they catch us, they’ll probably ask to play. Give me your pen and handkerchief.”
With some hesitance, Frederick passed George both items.
George drew a long rectangle on the cloth.
Frederick groaned. “I’ll never get that out.”
“Settle down, Eton,” George said, drawing another long line to divide the rectangle in half and then three vertical lines to separate the rectangle into six even sections. “It’s not like you don’t have a half dozen more in your kit bag.”
“Wait. You looked through my bag?”
“That’s not the point, Eton. The point is you can spare one.” George then passed the handkerchief and pen to Charlie. “Mouse, I need you to draw the symbols on the dice in the squares.”
Charlie picked up one of the dice. Crudely carved symbols marked each side. A heart, a club, a diamond, a spade, a crown, and an anchor. He copied one into each of the squares on the handkerchief and handed it back to George.
“Perfect,” George said. “Do any of you know how to play?”
The boys shook their heads.
“Not even you, Eton?”
“No.”
“What do they teach you in that fancy school of yours?” George asked.
“Not illegal dice games.”
“Well, they should. It could save your life.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers. “If it weren’t for crown and anchor, I’d be five fingers shy of a handshake.”
“Crown and anchor saved your fingers?” Frederick asked, unable to hide the skepticism in his voice.
“Sure did. After I’d escaped my job at the factory, I wandered down to the docks and talked my way into a game one of the managers was running out of his warehouse. The first few rounds didn’t go my way, and unfortunately, I’d exaggerated by a smidge how much money I had on me.”
“How much did you say you had?” Charlie asked.
“Five pounds.”
“Five pounds!” Thomas asked. “How much did you actually have?”
“Four pence.”
Thomas laughed. “You thought you could bluff your way into a game with dockworkers with four pence?”
“I did bluff my way into a game with dockworkers with four pence. My plan was to win enough that they’d never discover my lie, but my first few wagers didn’t go well, and when the man running the table learned I couldn’t settle my bets, he threatened to take my hand to teach me a lesson.”
“How’d you get out of it?” Charlie asked.
“Convinced him to let me play one more round, double or nothing.”
“You bet both your hands?” Thomas asked.
George glanced over at him. “I had nothing left to lose.”
“You had your hands to lose,” Frederick pointed out.
“But I didn’t lose, did I? Walked away with all ten fingers and ten crowns that night. Played so well, the owner gave me work and let me sleep in his warehouse. Crown and anchor kept me from starving for a few months. So you see, Eton, crown and anchor could save your hand or life someday, so pay attention.” He then explained the rules and declared he would be the banker and toss the dice for each round of play. The boys bet on each toss by placing coins on the symbols Charlie had drawn. As they played, they talked about everything—from what they thought the older crew members’ real names were to which nurses at the ADS were the prettiest.
“Confession time, boys,” George said, clearing the board of the winnings and losses. “What are your real birthdays? You first, Mouse.”
“October 12, 1902.”
“How about you, Eton?”
“December 6, 1901.”
“I’ve got you by five months,” George said. “Mine’s July 24, 1901. At least that’s what Miss Wachonick at the orphanage claimed it was. For all I know, I could be older than Bagger.”
“No one’s older than Bagger,” Charlie said.
Thomas laughed. It felt almost normal, but the moment of joy was quickly replaced by guilt. He shouldn’t be playing games or laughing. He should be looking for his brother.
George collected the dice and dropped them in the leather cup while the boys placed new bets. “Bagger claiming to be under forty years old is almost as believable as Thomas claiming to be eighteen. Fess up, Tommy. What’s your birthday? And don’t give us that line you tried on the recruiting officer at Trafalgar Square.” George stood up from his chair, squared his shoulders, and gave a crooked salute. “Timothy Bennett. March the first, 1602, sir.”
Everyone but Thomas laughed. “My birthday’s May 17, 1903.”
“May 17?” Frederick retrieved his notebook and opened to the page he’d been writing on when George called him over. He pointed to the top right corner. “That’s today!”
“Tommy! It’s your birthday?”
Thomas shrugged. “I guess. It’s hard to keep track of days down here.”
“Happy birthday, Thomas,” Charlie said.
Frederick quickly calculated the numbers in his head. “You’re fourteen today.”
“Not so loud,” Thomas said, his eyes darting to the doorway.
“Just think, Tommy,” George said with a wink. “In four short years, you’ll be eligible to join the army!”
The boys laughed again.
“Shut up and roll,” Thomas said, unable to hold back a smile.
With a flick of his wrist, George tossed the dice onto the table. “Now that we’ve established that I am the oldest of our little crew, I believe that means I outrank you all.”
Frederick shook his head. “That’s not how seniority in the military works.”
George passed Charlie three pence for his winning bet and collected the others’ losses. “Maybe not for the common soldier, but we’re not common soldiers, are we?” He shook the dice with a mischievous smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “We’re secret soldiers. We make our own rules, and I rule that as oldest, I deserve a promotion.”
“What kind of promotion?” Charlie asked. “Officer commanding?”
/>
“No, I was thinking higher than OC.”
“How much higher?” Thomas asked. “Commanding officer?”
George drummed his fingers on the table. “CO George does have a nice ring to it, but as the oldest of our crew, I deserve the highest rank.”
“Field marshal?” Frederick asked.
“I was thinking more along the lines of king.”
“King George?” Frederick chuckled. “Britain already has one of those, and I don’t think he’ll be abdicating his throne to you.”
“King George the Fifth can keep his throne and rule aboveground. I’ll rule beneath it.” George ran a hand through his ginger curls. “I’ve always thought I’d look good with a crown.”
“There isn’t a crown large enough to fit your big head,” Thomas teased.
“Blasphemy!” George yelled, throwing one of the dice at Thomas.
Thomas dodged the first die, but the second struck him between the eyes.
George readied the last die. “You will not insult your king, peasant.”
Thomas held up his hands in surrender. “My apologies, Your Majesty.”
“If you’re to be king, you do need a crown,” Frederick said. “Mouse, is there anything left in that Maconochie tin?”
Charlie grabbed the can next to him and looked inside. “No.”
“Toss it here.”
Charlie passed him the can that had contained the crew’s dinner, a beef stew of thin gravy, sliced turnips, carrots, and, if a soldier was lucky, a few chunks of fatty meat. Frederick held the tin above George’s head. “I, Frederick Chamberlain the Third, one hundred and fifteenth in line to the throne—”
George glanced up at him. “Seriously?”
“Yes, and don’t interrupt during a coronation. It’s uncouth.”
“I’ll give you uncouth,” George mumbled.
Frederick cleared his throat. “I, Frederick Chamberlain the Third, one hundred and fifteenth in line to the throne of Britain, crown you George, King of the Secret Soldiers.” With an exaggerated flourish, he placed the soup can on George’s head.
The small battered tin rested at an angle in George’s hair, and a drop of soup dribbled down the side of George’s face.
“Told you no crown would fit,” Thomas said.
Ignoring Thomas’s comment and the chunk of pale orange carrot sliding down his cheek, George puffed out his chest and lifted his head with an absurdly regal air. “Aren’t you supposed to bow to me now?”
Thomas bent forward, nearly brushing the floor with his hands. “Long live King George!”
“Long live King George!” Frederick and Charlie echoed between laughs.
TWENTY-NINE
AS TALKATIVE AS he was after their shifts, following his near-drowning George didn’t speak a word while working in the galleries. His silence crept beneath Thomas’s skin. When George was calm and comfortable enough to talk about everything from the woman with eleven fingers he’d met in London to the size and smell of his last bowel movement, Thomas’s anxiousness about being back in the tunnels decreased—at least a little. But George’s silence left too much space in Thomas’s thoughts. Space that fear, guilt, and grief eagerly filled. The unwelcome emotions dragged Thomas back to his conversation with George outside the tunnels.
As tough as it had been to hear, George had been right. In Thomas’s determination to find James, he’d given little thought to how his leaving would hurt his mum and dad and even less consideration to what would happen to them if, like James, Thomas never returned. The thought of dying beneath no-man’s-land, never to be found, terrified Thomas, but knowing his parents were thinking of him, even if they didn’t know where he was, gave him a small sense of peace. When fear kept him awake, he pictured his mum kneeling beside her bed, saying her rosary and praying for his safe return. But what had Thomas left behind for his mum to calm her fears? When she closed her eyes, she had only her imagination to fill in the many blanks he’d left, and Thomas knew how cruel imagination could be when stoked by fear.
After the flooding scare, every time the crew descended beneath no-man’s-land, Thomas remembered when he and James used to compete to see who could hold their breath the longest underwater. Time slowed when you were a breath away from death. Seconds felt like minutes, and minutes like hours. The crew’s eight-hour-shift felt like an eternity. By the hunch of George’s shoulders, Thomas knew he wasn’t alone in his dread.
To avoid another flooding, the crew was forced to dig lower to get beneath the wet-sand layer while carving out a new gallery and chamber. With their deadline looming, they doubled their efforts, muscling through the constant pain burning and twisting in their backs and shoulders.
Explosions trembled through the tunnel’s walls and ceiling. Clods of dirt and clay shook loose between the timbers and pelted their helmets. Thomas tried not to think about the shells hitting above their gallery or about how his decision to come to the Western Front might cause his parents to lose both their sons. Instead, he focused on his work.
Push, pull, bag, drag, raise.
The crew fell into the rhythm of their choreographed dance.
Push, pull, bag, drag, raise.
Push.
Push.
Mole’s large boots pressed against the spade, but it wouldn’t slide all the way into the clay. “Must have hit a rock,” Mole whispered, retracting the spade and placing it lower on the tunnel face. “I’ll try to get beneath it.” He motioned for Thomas to help.
Thomas moved into position.
Push.
The spade slid into the clay with ease. Mole pressed down with his heels to work the rock free. “It’s a big one,” he whispered, wiggling the spade up and down as he slowly extracted it from the wall.
Thomas grabbed a short slab of clay from the spade and handed it to Bagger, who placed it in a sandbag. Thomas then reached into the narrow hole with both hands. His fingers jammed against something hard.
“Do you feel it?” Bagger mouthed.
Thomas nodded.
“Can you work your fingers around it?” Mole whispered.
Thomas nodded again. The clay encasing the rock squished beneath Thomas’s fingers, so he dug them in deeper to strengthen his hold. He tried pulling the rock out, but it wouldn’t budge, so Mole carefully carved around Thomas’s arms and hands, widening the hole, while Bagger removed the clumps of clay holding the rock in place.
The men stepped back, and Thomas wedged his feet against the wall and pulled back on the rock. After several unsuccessful tugs, he looked at Bagger and shook his head. Bagger signaled for Charlie to bring him a light. Charlie scrambled over, lantern in hand. Thomas pulled his arms from the opening, and Bagger held the lantern up to the hole.
Thomas ducked beneath the lantern and peered into the opening. It took several impatient seconds for his eyes to adjust to the darkness after the glare of the lantern. As his vision continued to adjust, the darkness separated into varied shades of gray, and outlines took shape.
Thomas squinted, straining to make sense of the shapes, but his mind couldn’t puzzle the pieces together. In all his years in the mines, he’d never seen a rock like this before. He waved the light closer.
Bagger adjusted the lantern. Light and shadow swept through the opening, casting movement over the wide curves, sharp corners, and flat holes of the rock. When the swing of the lantern settled, a shaft of light cut above Thomas’s head into the opening, sending the shadows on the rock scattering, and the pieces fell into place.
Thomas scrambled back from the wall, knocking Bagger over. Mole reached down to help Bagger up, and the others gathered around.
“What’s wrong, Tommy?” George whispered.
Thomas couldn’t speak. He couldn’t breathe. He needed air. Pushing past George, he sprinted to the shaft and upper galleries. Dan’s words echoed in his mind with each panicked step.
If we don’t bury our dead, the war will, and us with them.
Thomas stumbled out o
f the tunnels and into the support trench. And then he vomited.
Back in the gallery, George grabbed the lantern and peered into the opening. “Oh, no,” he whispered as the light fell upon the object they’d mistaken for a rock.
A dented helmet.
Cracked goggles.
A gas mask.
And tufts of blond hair. The same shade as Thomas’s.
THIRTY
TIME, FOR THE young soldier, dissolved in a haze of drug-induced sleep and paralyzing flashbacks. He could no longer measure its passing in minutes, days, weeks, and months. He marked it by the only constants in his life: morphine injections, recurring nightmares, nurses’ shifts, and the changing faces of the occupants in the beds surrounding him. A few of the occupants recovered enough to be transferred to prisoner of war camps, but most lay behind the field hospital, in shallow unmarked graves.
The young soldier had been in the German field hospital for nineteen new faces when he woke from another nightmare about his first night in the trenches and found himself staring into the terrified eyes of the twentieth new face. Bandages hid most of twenty’s features, as well as his small body, but his messy black hair and dark eyes, swimming with tears, sparked memories of the last time the soldier had seen another young boy with a headful of cowlicks, crying and waving goodbye from the platform of a train station.
Twenty, noticing the soldier staring at him, reached out a bandaged hand and spoke in a hoarse, hurried whisper. The young soldier did not know the French words spilling from the prisoner of war’s trembling lips, but he had no trouble interpreting their shaky, hitched delivery. The boy was in terrible pain and very scared. The faster he spoke, the more his tears flowed, until they choked off his voice completely. His wide eyes locked on the young soldier’s face. The boy’s chest heaved in panicked breaths.
The young soldier stretched out his hand and took hold of the boy’s exposed fingers.
THIRTY-ONE
AN HOUR LATER, the crew had removed the body from the tunnel, and the boys went looking for Thomas. When they didn’t find him in the dugout, George asked Bagger if they could take Max for walk.