“We all were,” Charlie said.

Frederick reached into his coat. “George made me promise to give you this if anything happened.” He took out a folded sheet of paper, wrinkled from the days in his pocket.

“What is it?” Thomas asked.

Frederick unfolded the paper. “After I wrote letters for our families, George asked me to write one for him.”

Thomas’s throat ached, and his bottom lip quivered with barely contained sobs. “Will you read it for me?”

Choking back tears of his own, Frederick nodded and cleared his throat.

Thomas,

I’m not one for words, and I’m really hoping you never see this letter because if you do that means I’m dead. You’re the closest thing to family I’ve got out here, or anywhere, and if I’m to die in this war, there are a few things I need to say.

First, I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have conned you into coming to the Western Front. I’ve never met your brother, but I know James would agree that you don’t belong here. You should be home with your family.

Second, I want to thank you for asking me to come to Dover with you after the war. I don’t know if you meant it or if your family would really ever have taken me in, but thank you for asking.

And lastly, I hope you find your brother. You’ve refused to give up or forget him. If only all of us were so lucky to have a brother like you.

So, Tommy, I guess this is goodbye. May you have a long, good life, sailing the Channel with your brother. If you can, every once in a while, spare a thought for a lying thief from London. You’ll be the only one who does.

George

Charlie bowed his head to hide his tears, and Frederick folded the letter and handed it to Thomas, who tucked it in his pocket.

The boys sat in silence as artillery fire continued to rain down across no-man’s-land. On the other side of the battlefield, tens of thousands of German soldiers slept, unaware of the nineteen mines, packed with nearly one million pounds of ammonal and gun cotton, beneath their feet. Nineteen charge chambers, at the ends of tunnels carved from the earth by thousands of tunnelers, who’d worked tirelessly, day and night, beneath no-man’s-land. Secret soldiers, who’d labored and fought on a battlefield most didn’t know existed. For months and years, they’d lived, worked, eaten, and slept in those tunnels. And some, like George, had died in them.

Thomas took the necklace from his pocket and clutched his medals in prayer that George and all the tunnelers who’d sacrificed their lives under the Western Front would someday rest in peace. Suddenly, the Allied guns fell silent, and an eerie quiet settled over the battlefield. The absence of noise seized Thomas’s breath. If they’d succeeded in their mission, he knew what would follow. Holding Max, Thomas struggled to his feet. “I have to see.”