Secret Soldiers

by Keely Hutton

  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 s
aid. “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.

  THIRTY-SIX

  FOR OVER A MONTH, the young soldier spent sixteen hours a day toiling alongside his fellow prisoners of war in the German trenches. He dug and hauled spoil, loaded artillery shells into howitzer cannons, and scurried onto no-man’s-land during ceasefires to retrieve injured and dead German soldiers. He regretted every shovelful of earth he removed that helped fortify the enemy’s position, he begged God for forgiveness with every shell he loaded into a howitzer aimed at the Allied trenches, and he said silent prayers for the fallen comrades he left behind every time he carried the body of a fallen enemy off the battlefield. But the young soldier never questioned or refused an order. To do so would have earned him a bullet to the head and an unmarked grave.

  At night, when he lay awake, too hungry and afraid to sleep, he stared across no-man’s-land. When the guns fell silent, he could hear the voices of Allied soldiers drifting over the battlefield. He dreamed of running across the stretch of desolate land to join them. It would only take him a few minutes to reach the other side if a German or British sniper didn’t stop him first. With a heavy sigh, he pushed the fantasy of escaping from his mind and curled up next to the French boy in their dugout. Trying to escape would be too great a risk. If he hoped to ever get home to his family again, he had to stay alive, and, burrowed deep into the higher ground bordering no-man’s-land, there was no place safer on the Western Front than the German trenches.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  IN THE RESERVE trenches, George and Frederick managed to scrounge up two tins of Maconochie beef stew and a small package of bread. As they made their way back to the support trenches, Max trotted behind them, his attention focused on the food in their hands.

  “This is not the three meals a day I was promised.” George tore open the K-Brot package and handed Frederick a piece of the tasteless bread. “When this war is over, the first thing I’m going to do is eat real stew and dumplings until I get sick.”

  “And a whole roast,” Frederick said.

  “And meat pudding.” George sighed.

  They continued listing off foods as they rounded the corner to find Charlie sitting alone in their designated meeting place.

  George tossed him a tin of beef stew. “Here you go, Mouse.”

  Max sat before Charlie and licked his chops as Charlie opened the tin. “Where’s Thomas?” he asked.

  “He’s not with you?” Frederick asked.

  “No. I thought he was with you two getting food.”

  George sat on the bench beside Charlie. “Last we saw him was with you and Mole in the dugout. When was the last time you saw him?”

  “Over an hour ago,” Charlie said.

  “Where?” Frederick asked.

  “He was headed back to the dugout.”

  George set down his open tin, and Max jumped onto the bench to lap up the cold stew. “Why?”

  “He said he forgot something and he’d meet me here. When he didn’t show up after a few minutes, I assumed he’d found you two in the reserve trenches and was getting food.”

  “We never saw him,” Frederick said. “Do you think he’s with Mole and Boomer checking the leads again?”

  George stood. “Only one way to find out.” He grabbed his gas mask and hurried down the support trench to the tunnel entrance. Charlie, Frederick, and Max followed him past their empty crew dugout to the shaft that connected the upper galleries to the lower galleries.

  Boomer and Mole sat near the lip of the shaft. They were focused on checking the wiring of the leads to a pair of raised metal screws on the lid of a wooden box situated between them and didn’t hear the boys approaching. Black capital letters spelling out EXPLODER were stenciled on the side of the box, and a long wooden dowel capped with a wooden handle extended from the top.

  “It passed the resistance test,” Boomer reassured Mole. “Even if the aerial bombardment collapses part of the gallery, the leads should remain intact, and the mines should fire.”

  “Good.” Mole checked the time and smiled. “Barring any unforeseen problems, Maedelstede Farm is ready to fire.”

  He looked up from his watch as George skidded to a halt before them. “Shillings? What are you doing in here?”

  Charlie and Frederick joined George beside the men. Max paced back and forth in front of the shaft and whined.

  “What are all of you doing in here?” Mole asked.
“I told you boys to watch from the support trenches.”

  “I know,” George said, “but we can’t find Thomas. Have you seen him?”

  “Not since I left you boys packing up the dugout,” Boomer said.

  “What about you, Mole?” Frederick asked. “Where did Thomas say he was going after he came back to the dugout?”

  “Thomas didn’t come back to the dugout.”

  “Yes, he did,” Charlie said. “After he and I left you, Thomas said he forgot something in the dugout and headed back into the tunnels.”

  Mole shook his head. “I’m telling you, the last time I saw Dover was when he left with you, Mouse. If he’d come back, I would have seen or…” Mole’s voice trailed off.

  “What is it?” George asked.

  “When I was packing up the last crate, I thought I heard a voice, but when I looked, no one was there.”

  “Maybe he found what he was looking for and left,” Frederick said.

  Boomer shook his head. “I was waiting for Mole at the entrance. No one but Mole came out, and one of us has been here ever since.”

  “Then where is he?” Frederick asked.

  George inched closer to the lip of the shaft, where Max continued to pace and whine. He peered down into the darkness.

  “You don’t think he went back down into the galleries, do you?” Charlie asked.

  “There’s nowhere else he could be,” George said.

  “It doesn’t make any sense.” Frederick looked at the men. “Why would he go back down there this close to zero hour?”

  But George did not wait for an explanation. Picking up Max with one arm, he grabbed hold of the ladder and began climbing down the shaft, ignoring Mole’s order for him to wait.

  He skipped several rungs in his descent. When he reached the bottom of the shaft, he found Thomas’s kit bag and boots abandoned beneath the last rung. He put Max down and lit one of the extinguished lanterns embedded in the clay walls. It cast a weak light down the narrow corridor. “Find Thomas, Max!”