Gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, Thomas hobbled over to the collapsed wall and helped George pull large clumps of clay and pieces of timber from the pile. Sweat ran down their faces, necks, and backs as they worked. Pain accompanied their every movement, but they kept digging. The alternative was to sit and wait for the Allied commanders to detonate the mines, a thought that made them work faster.

“Hey, Tommy,” George said, thrusting his fingers into the clay. “About this plan of yours for after the war.”

“What about it?” Thomas asked, pulling another clump of clay free from the pile.

“Were you serious about me coming to Dover and helping your brother and you start up your shipping company?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then we should probably work out the terms of my contract.”

“Now?” Thomas asked as he pushed and pulled against a broken beam to work it free.

“Can you think of a better time?” George asked.

“Yes. Several, actually.”

“Well, I’m not comfortable accepting your offer of employment until we’ve agreed to the wages and terms of my position in your company.”

Despite the pain in his leg and the fear that at any second the mines could detonate, Thomas chuckled. “Okay, but we won’t be able to pay you until we get some steady business.”

George grabbed another handful of clay. “That’s not an ideal proposition, Tommy, but I guess I’d be willing to work for a place to sleep and two home-cooked meals a day.”

“We can do that.”

“Until you turn a profit. After that I expect my fair share.”

The chunk of timber broke free, and Thomas tossed it aside. “Of course.”

“And,” George added, heaving another handful of clay over his shoulder, “I want one of the boats named after me. Every king has boats named after him. And I am the King of the Secret Soldiers.”

“This is true. Is that all?”

“Yes, well, except for one small problem.”

“What’s that?” Thomas asked.

“If I’m to be spending most of my time on a boat, it would probably be good if I knew how to swim. Almost drowning once was one too many times for me.”

“James and I can teach you how to swim. We Sullivan brothers take care of our own, you know? So do we have a deal?”

“We have a deal.”

After that, the boys dug in silence, focusing every ounce of their waning energy on escaping. Fear of dying underground had been Thomas’s constant companion since his first day as a miner at age ten. It had taunted him with whispers of danger in the coal mines of Dover and stalked him to the tunnels of the Western Front. It had clung to him, cold and damp, during fitful sleep in the dugout and prickled across his skin like a low current of electricity as he’d descended beneath no-man’s-land night after night.

Yet now, as he stood on a broken leg, yards away from a chamber stacked with explosives, clawing at the cold blue clay with bare hands until his fingers ached, an unsettling calm swirled through Thomas’s mind. He burrowed his fingers into the clay and ripped two handfuls from the wall, and as he did, laughter, abrupt and deranged, burst from his throat.