Frederick and Charlie helped him across the duckboards and onto a fire step, where they peered through holes in the parapet. The silence stretched on, taut and tenuous until it snapped with mute explosions that rumbled, deep and low, beneath Messines Ridge. The ground bucked and tremored, knocking soldiers on both sides of no-man’s-land off their feet, but the battlefield held firm against nearly one million pounds of explosives.

Thomas closed his eyes. They’d failed in their mission. Fresh tears ran down his cheeks at the realization that Bagger, Bats, and George had died for nothing. Scrubbing away his tears, he was starting down the fire step when no-man’s-land erupted.

The boys watched in horror as towers of fire punched from the bowels of the battlefield, tearing through the German trenches. The force of the blasts lifted concrete bunkers from the ground and tossed clods of earth the size of houses into the air. A wall of flame, blazing a blinding ember red, ignited the sky along Messines. The boys ducked below the parapet, shielding their faces from the intense light and blistering heat. Charlie wrapped his arms around Poppy’s cage, and Thomas huddled over Max, who whimpered in his arms.

The explosions signaled the Allied troops waiting in the front-line trenches. Their rifles and artillery aimed across the battlefield, they unleashed the full fury of over two thousand guns on what remained of the German line in a creeping barrage so loud it was heard as far as London. The boys covered their ears against the gunfire, but their hands did little to lessen the deafening noise. Below the noise, a command shot through the trenches.

“Attack!”

Thomas, Frederick, and Charlie peered back through the holes in the parapet and watched in awe as eighty thousand soldiers climbed over the top of the trenches. Guns raised and firing, they rushed across the battlefield, stepping over fallen comrades and dodging falling debris, burning trees, and tangled lines of “devil’s rope.” Thick smoke and anguished screams rose from giant craters pocking the ridge.

Voices, wailing in pain and fear, crowded the tight spaces between artillery blasts and gunfire. Their pleas, spoken in different languages and varying accents, collided and combined into a universal cry for help.

Thomas could no longer bear to watch or listen. He turned to ask Frederick and Charlie to help him to the Regimental Aid Post when he heard another voice cry out, but this one sounded familiar. Thomas closed his eyes and strained to hear it over the battle raging in front of him. After several seconds, the voice cried out again.

“Help! I need a stretcher bearer! Hurry!”

Thomas turned to see a man rushing through the support trench toward them. Thick layers of dirt and clay encrusted the man’s face and uniform, but Thomas knew him immediately by his stout build and lumbering gait.

“Eton!” Boomer yelled. “Get over here!”

“What’s wrong?” Frederick asked as he ran to meet the miner. “Is Mole hurt?”