AFTER THREE WEEKS with the clay kickers, the boys settled into their monotonous routines. Frederick helped Bagger load the sacks of spoil on a trolley, which George, the unit’s trammer, pulled to the tunnel entrance.
While they waited for George to return with the trolley and timber, Frederick sat on the tunnel floor next to Feathers’s cage. The team’s canary was the only member of their unit foolish enough to make any sound, except for George, of course, who somewhere along his trip to the entrance and back always forgot about the crew’s silence rule and offered some ridiculous comment or uncouth joke on his return. His forgetfulness was answered with an icy glare from Mole and a swift slap to the head from Bagger.
Frederick was convinced that if George didn’t learn to keep his big mouth shut, he’d end up with a permanent impression of Bagger’s large hand on his skull. Not that Frederick thought it would matter to George. The London street rat would probably boast to anyone who’d listen about his misshapen, hand-imprinted head like it was a badge of honor.
While Frederick waited for George to return with the lumber, he ignored Feathers’s tiny chirps and watched Bats and Charlie huddle close to the tunnel wall. Armed with a notebook, pencil, compass, and geophone, Bats used the two mercury-filled disks attached to a stethoscope to listen for and track enemy movement beneath the battlefield. One hand signal from Bats, and the entire unit froze. No one dared breathe while they waited for the listener to indicate where the enemy was: to their right, their left, above their heads, or below their feet.
The moment Bats pointed out the direction, Boomer and Thomas abandoned their work helping Bagger fill sacks and quietly bored a hole into the clay wall in the direction of the enemy. The rest of the crew, including Feathers, retreated to a safe distance to protect themselves should the blast fire back into their gallery instead of through the wall into the enemy’s. With the hole finished, Boomer eased a cylinder charge called a torpedo into the opening. Thomas would then pack the opening behind the explosive with sandbags to direct the blast toward the enemy and away from the crew. Work was performed swiftly and silently—that is until the torpedo exploded, and everyone prayed their gallery would hold and the enemy’s gallery would collapse. When the dust settled, Bats and Charlie would listen for proof that the explosion had hit its mark. Silence meant success. Noises meant failure and that Boomer and Thomas had to quickly bore another hole before the Germans detonated their own torpedo.
After one such explosion, Bats thought he heard movement beyond the tunnel wall. Boomer gave Thomas a quick hand signal, and Thomas started to silently bore a second hole in the wall several feet to the left of the first hole. When he’d drilled deep enough, Bats listened again at the wall to determine whether they needed to load another torpedo. From his position farther down the gallery, Frederick watched Bats’s face for any hint of what he heard on the other side of the clay wall. His muscles tensed, ready to run should the listener signal that an explosion was imminent.
After several torturous minutes, Bats mouthed “False alarm” and gave the crew the all clear. Breathing a sigh of relief, Boomer signaled Thomas to remove the drill and start packing the hole while the rest of the crew resumed their work at the tunnel face.
Frederick, who’d returned with Feathers’s cage to his position behind Mole and Bagger, watched the small boy work, cursing the fact that Thomas would get to return to his family after the war and tell them he’d protected the Allied front by killing dozens of the enemy with explosives. All Frederick would be able to tell his family was that he’d carried sacks of clay, lugged lumber beams, and watched a stupid canary flit about its cage. That would be Frederick’s total contribution to Britain’s war effort—army ornithologist.
He nudged the cage with his elbow, sending Feathers into a flurry of flapping and chirping before the canary settled back onto its perch. Some war hero I’ve turned out to be, Frederick thought, returning his attention to Thomas. At this rate, my father will be too ashamed to let me in the house, much less hang my portrait in the family gallery.
Frederick had contemplated writing to his father and requesting he use his influence to have Frederick transferred to a unit of real soldiers. He felt confident his father would agree and go along with Frederick’s deception, not wanting a son of his tarnishing the family name by having to reveal he’d left school and lied to a recruiting officer, but Frederick wasn’t as certain about his mother. If she saw Frederick’s letter and learned where he was, she would move heaven and earth to bring him home. He’d be an Eton dropout, a military embarrassment, and the shame of his family.
No, he’d have to remain under no-man’s-land with these tunnel rats until he came up with a better plan. Sweat trickled down his face and back as he sat, hating everyone and everything connected to his unbearable situation. He pushed his glasses up for the millionth time, but they slipped down again the second he let go. Adding the stagnant heat and his poor eyesight to the never-ending list of things Frederick loathed, he left his glasses perched on the tip of his nose and returned to plotting new ways to get himself transferred from the clay kickers unit.
When George finally returned with a trolley stacked with timber and a new question for Mole, Frederick stood to help unload the trolley at the exact moment Bagger swung out a hand to cuff George for talking. This time George dodged the blow by jumping back, a move that drove the timber beam he held into Frederick’s gut.
Everyone stopped their work and watched as Frederick clutched his stomach and sank to the ground, unable to draw a full breath. Thomas, still removing the drill from the hole for Boomer, giggled. Frederick glared at him, and Thomas covered his mouth to stifle the laughter.
Sorry, Eton, George mouthed, putting the beam back on the trolley and extending a hand to help Frederick up.
Frederick slapped his hand away. “Don’t call me that,” he whispered, “and pay attention to what you’re doing before you get someone killed.”
“No need to get all poked up about it,” George whispered, an amused smile tickling at the corners of his mouth. “It was an accident.”
“Accident,” Frederick spat, drawing Bagger’s attention, once again, from helping Mole at the tunnel face.
Now it was Frederick who got whacked in the side of the head.
Back to work. Now, Bagger mouthed.
With a roll of his eyes, George returned to the trolley, but Frederick followed him.
“You and your friends,” he whispered, stabbing a finger in the direction of Thomas, who was now clutching his stomach in a fit of stifled giggles, “have mocked and insulted me every chance you get.”
George shoved Frederick, knocking the glasses from his face. “That’s because you’ve looked down your nose at us like we’re gutter rats since the second you saw us on the train.”
Boomer shot the boys a warning look.
Frederick plucked his glasses from the floor and cleaned the smudged lenses with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. Putting the glasses back on, he leaned in close, so only George could hear. “That’s because you are gutter rats.”
George grabbed the front of Frederick’s shirt and cocked back his fist. “Well, this gutter rat is gonna bash in that uppity nose of yours until you’re breathing through your eyes.”
Boomer grabbed Frederick while Mole restrained George before a punch was thrown.
“Knock it off,” Bagger said through clenched teeth. “Both of you.”
Frederick struggled to break free from the miner’s grip. “He started it.”
“And I’m gonna finish it,” George sneered, spitting in Frederick’s face.
“Get them out of here,” Bagger ordered in a harsh whisper, “before they give away our—”
“Shut up!”
Everyone stopped and looked at Charlie.
“What is it, Mouse?” Bats whispered.
“Do you hear it?” Charlie asked.
Bats held up his hand, signaling for quiet. Frederick and George stopped struggling, and Boomer and Mole released their holds on the boys. Frederick closed his eyes and held his breath, trying to pick up the noise Charlie heard. Fear trickled like ice water down his spine at the possibilities. Was it digging? Had his fight with George given away their position? Were the Germans packing their own torpedo into the wall separating them? Panic took hold, and he was turning to run when Bats said, “I don’t hear anything.”
“Neither do I,” whispered Charlie. “That’s the problem.”
Before he could explain further, Thomas bent over and vomited. After the second heave, his eyes rolled back, and he fainted.
Boomer rushed over to his apprentice’s side. George, Mole, and Bagger joined him, but Frederick’s attention remained fixed on Charlie, whose trembling finger pointed to the birdcage behind him and the lifeless canary lying on the cage floor.