THE CREW SPENT their last few shifts hauling explosives down the tunnels to pack in the Maedelstede Farm mine, one of twenty-three hidden beneath a stretch of seven miles of enemy trenches. The beams above their heads groaned, and clots of clay shook free from between the boards under the constant bombardment of gunfire and howitzers raining down on no-man’s-land as the crew stacked the waterproof tins of ammonal from floor to ceiling in the chamber. Not an inch of space remained. Thomas helped Boomer embed an electric detonator, connected to the lead, into the powder of one of the tins before inserting loose detonators into every third tin crowding the chamber. They then ran the leads and fuse up to the top of the main shaft while the rest of the crew set to work tamping the mine.
“We spent months taking all of this clay out of here,” George complained as he lifted another heavy sandbag from the shaft onto the tram to be dragged down the gallery toward the Maedelstede Farm mine, where it would be stacked on the hundreds of bags already packed tightly in the gallery. The bag left a blue streak on the front of his shirt and trousers, which were already caked with wet clay. When it dried, the blue clay ground into the crew’s clothes and skin faded to a ghastly white, leaving the tunnelers looking like walking corpses. “Why are we hauling it all back down?”
“The charge chamber needs a solid back when it’s fired,” Boomer said, tossing another bag on the pile. “Explosions seek the path of least resistance. We want that path to be straight up under the German trenches, not back down these galleries toward ours. We’re trying to break the German lines, not our own.”
Frederick rolled his sore shoulders. “Fine, but how many more rows of bags do we need?
“To be safe, we need the tamping to be one and a half times the distance of the solid ground we’re setting to break through, so keep hauling, boys.”
The crew finished tamping the mine the day before the attack. That evening, Mole returned to the dugout from a meeting with the other crews’ leaders at the command center.
“Is the mission still on?” Boomer asked.
With a frustrated groan, Mole rubbed his ears. “What?”
“Is the mission still on?” Boomer repeated louder.
“Yes,” Mole said, pouring himself a cup of lukewarm tea from the crew’s kettle. “British planes will bombard the German lines to camouflage the noise of the Allied tanks moving into position on our lines over the next two hours, and our infantry has been notified about the mission and will storm no-man’s-land and take the German trenches after the mines are fired. If all goes as planned, they should meet little resistance.”
“So our mission’s not so secret anymore?” George asked.
“Not to anyone except hopefully the Germans.” Mole drained the last drops of tea from his tin cup. “Though it won’t be a secret from them for much longer.”
“Are the other mines ready?” Boomer asked.
“General Plumer said the Germans withdrew from the area above the Birdcage mines. He ordered all four mines in that area be held in reserve and not fired, but the nineteen other mines are set to detonate. Zero hour is 3:10 A.M.”
“That’s going to be one hell of an explosion,” Boomer said.
“The largest the world has ever seen,” Mole said. “Before he dismissed us, Major-General Harington told us we may not make history tomorrow, but we’ll certainly change the geography.”
George glanced over at the empty bunks of their lost crew members. “Just wish Bagger and Bats were here to see it.”
Thomas nodded. “We have to make sure those mines blow, in their honor.”
Before Mole and Boomer left the boys to recheck the leads and fuses running from the Maedelstede Farm mine to the top of the gallery shaft, Mole pulled an envelope from his pocket. “I almost forgot, Mouse. This came for you.” He handed the envelope to Charlie. “Last day in the tunnels and one of you lads finally gets some mail from home. Better late than never, I guess.”
Charlie stared at the envelope for several minutes after the men left.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” George finally asked.
Charlie swallowed hard. “What if it’s bad news?”
“What if it’s good news?” Thomas replied. “Only one way to find out.”
Charlie tore open the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of folded paper, which he handed to Frederick. “Would you read it for me, please?”
Frederick read the signature first. “It’s from Pastor Miller.”
“What’s it say?” Charlie asked.
Frederick skimmed the letter. “Your home wasn’t hit. A zeppelin did drop a bomb on a warehouse nearby, but it happened at night when the building was empty.”
Charlie sank down onto his bunk. George sat down next to him. “See there, Mouse. Nothing to worry about. Everything’s fine.”
“Not everything,” Frederick said, continuing to read down the letter.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked. “Is it my brother?”
Frederick handed him the letter. “It’s not serious. Henry just broke his arm.”
“How?”
“Your father told Pastor Miller it was an accident. Henry fell running through the house.”
Charlie felt the anger he’d fought to bury after the fight in the tunnels clawing its way back to the surface. “He always says it’s an accident.” His hand squeezed into a fist, crushing the letter. “It never is.”
While they waited for Mole and Boomer to return, George tried to distract Charlie from the news about his brother.
“Come on, Mouse. How about one last game of poker in the dugout?”
Charlie pocketed his letter and reluctantly joined George, Thomas, and Frederick at the table.
“Just think, if this mission goes well tonight,” George said, dealing out the cards, “it will definitely end this bloody stalemate.”
Thomas fanned out his cards, careful to keep them close to his chest. George claimed it wasn’t cheating to look at an opponent’s hand if the chap was careless enough to show them to you.
Frederick placed two of his cards facedown. “If we can take Messines Ridge, we might be able to drive Fritz back to Germany.”
“If all the mines blow, we’ll drive them back farther than Germany,” George said, dealing him two new cards.
“They’ll all blow,” Frederick said.
Charlie tossed down one of his own cards. “I don’t know. Boomer’s concerned the tunnel the Germans broke through will collapse if artillery hits within yards of it.”
“It doesn’t help that our troops have been shelling the German trenches for weeks,” George complained.
“It’s a good strategy,” Frederick said. “With the increase in guns and infantry gathering on our front, the Germans have to know a ground assault is imminent. The constant shelling will keep them focused on what’s happening in our trenches and not what we might have been doing beneath theirs. It should gain us the element of surprise at zero hour.”
“That’s if our shells don’t trigger the mines before then,” George said. “The sooner we detonate those mines, the better.”
“And the sooner this war will be over, and we can get back to our lives,” Frederick said.
George dealt Charlie three new cards. “You headed back to London after the war, Mouse?”
Charlie did not hesitate in his response. “Yes.”
“What about your father?” Thomas asked.
“If Mouse can face Germans in the tunnels, he can face his father,” George said. “Right, Mouse?”
“I have to get my brother away from him.” He looked over at Thomas. “I never should have left. He needs me.”
Thomas nodded.
“Good for you, Mouse,” George said. “What about you, Thomas? You still going back to Dover?”
“As soon as they will let me.” Thomas dreaded the thought of going home without James, but once the war ended, he couldn’t leave his parents and sisters faring for themselves any longer.
“And I suppose you’ll be heading back to that fancy school of yours,” George said, dealing Frederick new cards.
“If my father doesn’t lock me in my room for the rest of my life,” Frederick replied.
“What about you, George?” Charlie asked. “Will you go back to London?”
“No. I’ve seen enough of London. Think it’s about time I check out some of the rest of the country.” He smiled at Thomas. “I hear there might be work for someone with my skills in Dover.”
“Absolutely,” Thomas said, returning George’s smile.
“Wherever we go,” Charlie said, “we should make a pact to meet up again.”
“That is a fine idea, Mouse!”
“When should we plan to meet?” Thomas asked.
“How about a year after the war ends?” George said.
“Better make it two,” Frederick said. “Hopefully by then I’ll be done with whatever punishment my father doles out.”
“Two years from the day the war ends it is,” George said. “We’ll meet and celebrate the Great War being over and having survived it.”
“Where should we meet?” Charlie asked.
George waved away his question. “Details. We’ll figure that out after the war.”
“So we’ll meet up two years to the day after this war ends, which, if our mission succeeds, could be tonight.” Frederick extended his arm over the middle of the table. He leaned in and whispered, “It will be a secret soldier reunion.”
Charlie placed his hand atop Frederick’s. “Count me in.”
“Me too,” Thomas said, putting his hand on Charlie’s.
George added his hand on top of the pile. “I wouldn’t miss it.”
Mole and Boomer returned to the dugout as George finished collecting his winnings from the others.
“Time to pack up, chaps,” Mole announced. “Command wants all tunneled dugouts in a four-hundred-yard radius of the mines evacuated before zero hour. Grab your things and head up top to wait for the show, but stay away from the front-line trenches. They’ve ordered all men out of the trench dugouts within a two-hundred-yard radius until after the mines fire.”
“Why?” Frederick asked. “Do they expect the blasts to collapse our trenches?”
“No one really knows what to expect,” Boomer said, shoving his army blanket into his kit bag. “Nothing like this has ever been attempted before, so they’re being extra cautious. Stay out of the infantry’s way. As soon as these mines blow, they’ll be going over the top. It’s best you find a spot in the support or reserve trenches to watch. Understand?”
The boys nodded.
“What about you and Mole?” Thomas asked. “Won’t you be in danger at the top of the shaft?”
“I have faith in our tamping,” Boomer said, jamming his feet inside his boots. “We packed an additional three yards of sandbags in the gallery. It’ll hold.”
Mole checked his watch. “I guess we’ll find out one way or another in three hours.”
After the boys had gathered their meager belongings, Boomer left to speak with two of the other crew leaders who, like him, had been tasked with pushing the plungers that would detonate the mines.
“How can he be so calm about all this?” Charlie asked Thomas.
“He knows we’ve done all we can to make sure this mission is successful. All we can do now is wait.”
The dugout trembled beneath another wave of shelling.
“Well, I, for one, am not waiting down here,” George said, slinging his kit bag over his shoulder. “Think I’ll go scrounge up some food in the reserve trenches.”
Max jumped off Thomas’s lap at the word food and followed him to the doorway.
“I’ll join you,” Frederick said, packing up the last of his books. “All this sitting around and waiting is making me nervous.”
“You chaps coming?” George asked Charlie and Thomas.
“I have a few things left to pack,” Thomas said.
“Me too,” Charlie said, taking down the framed sketches of Bagger and Bats and placing them carefully in his bag.
“If we can’t find you in the reserve trenches,” Thomas said, “we’ll meet you at the corner of the support and communication trenches. That should be a safe enough distance from the mine blasts to watch the assault.”
“Sounds like a plan,” George said. “How about you, Mole?”
“What?” Mole said, angling his right ear to better hear.
“Are you coming with us?” George yelled.
Mole shook his head. “I’ll grab some food after the dugout’s cleared and then join Boomer at the top of the shaft to count down until zero hour. We’ll see you boys in the reserve trenches after the show.”
“Good luck, sir,” Frederick said.
Mole smiled. “You too, Eton.”
Thomas watched as Frederick and George exited the dugout with Max trotting along at George’s heels.
Five minutes later, Charlie and Thomas finished packing their belongings and told Mole they’d see him up top after the mines fired.
As they made their way through the gallery to the tunnel entrance, Thomas imagined the thousands of unsuspecting German soldiers across no-man’s-land, sleeping in their dugouts and trenches, yards above one million pounds of explosives. The more he thought about the surprise attack they would soon unleash on the enemy, the more he wondered if the German miners hadn’t executed a similar plan. Staring down at the worn boards lining the gallery floor, Thomas quickened his pace, suddenly worried that at any moment the earth beneath him might explode. Anxious paranoia hummed through his body. He pushed thoughts of the impending explosions and the battle that would follow from his mind and thought about Charlie’s decision to return home after the war to help his brother. He knew James had planned to return home after the war to help Thomas start their shipping business. They’d had so many dreams for their future, but then James went missing, leaving Thomas with only a battered family picture and a Saint Joseph medal to remember him by.
Thomas reached up to touch his medals, but found only fabric and flesh. He felt all around his neck, but the necklace was gone. He stopped at the tunnel entrance.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asked.
“I left something in the dugout,” Thomas said. “You go on ahead.”
“You sure? I can wait.”
“It’ll only take a minute. I’ll meet you and the others in the support trenches.”
Before Charlie could argue, Thomas turned and hurried back toward the crew’s dugout.
On the way, he mentally retraced his steps, thinking back to the last time he’d touched the medals. The memory surfaced cold and sweaty.
Before Thomas had embedded his first loose fuse in the mine, he’d gripped his medals and said a prayer, asking his grandad and James to watch over them. When the crew built the final wall of sandbags to seal off the gallery, Thomas’s gas mask came loose for the sixth time that shift. He’d pulled it down from his face and let it hang beneath his chin. When Boomer noticed, he’d signaled for Thomas to put it back on. With a frustrated jerk, Thomas had yanked the mask back onto his face.
Standing outside the dugout, Thomas squeezed his eyes shut. “No, no, no, no…” He stared down the dark tunnel that led to the shaft and gallery where he knew his necklace must be. He had to hurry and find it before it was lost forever. Grabbing the door frame, he leaned inside the dugout. Mole stood with his back to him, folding up his Tommy’s Cooker and placing it with the crew’s tin cups in the crate they’d used as their table.
“Mole, I lost something in the gallery,” he said, grabbing a lantern from the wall. “I’ll meet you up top.”
“What?” Mole said, turning to face the doorway, but Thomas was already gone.
Mole rubbed his ears and grumbled to himself, “Blimey, now I’m bloody hearing voices.” He then finished packing the crew’s belongings and took the box topside to meet up with Boomer.