“Hey,” George called out to him softly from a corner of the trench. “You comin’?”

Thomas hesitated.

“Your funeral, Tommy.”

Thomas pressed a frustrated fist to his chest until he felt the hard edges of his medals burrow into his skin. I will find my brother, he vowed. Then he turned and trailed George back to the crew’s dugout.

TEN

THOUGHTS SCURRIED THROUGH Thomas’s weary brain like trench rats, numerous, insatiable, and each one chased by death. When exhaustion finally claimed his mind, guilt and fear plagued his sleep, and his family haunted his dreams.

Dad. Working in the coal mine. Fighting for every breath. Coughing into his bloodstained handkerchief.

James. Clutching at a wound. Writhing on the battlefield. Lying unconscious in a hospital.

Charlotte and Letitia. Crying out in hunger. Begging for scraps on the streets. Shivering in the cold.

Mum. Nursing her ailing husband. Praying for her missing sons. Weeping over an empty picture frame.

Thomas felt her tears on his face. He tried to wipe them away, but they continued to fall. He rolled over and burrowed his face in his coat, desperate for a few more minutes of sleep, but her tears persisted. This time dripping down the back of his neck.

Thomas lifted his head to tell Mum everything would be all right, but instead of staring into her pale blue eyes, he found himself face-to-face with Max, Bagger’s rat-catching partner from the trenches. The terrier gave him a lick on the tip of his nose. Remembering how many rats the dog’s mouth had killed the day before, Thomas pulled his wool blanket over his face before the ratter could land another lick.

“Rise and shine, Dover!” Bagger said, yanking off the blanket. “It’s 8:40. Our shift starts in twenty.”

Cold, damp air flowed over Thomas, and Max scrambled forward to continue his lick assault on Thomas’s neck and chin. “I’m up. I’m up,” he said, scratching Max behind the ears. “So you’re a ratter and a rooster.”

The dog’s stubby tail thumped against his leg.

“Max has many jobs down here,” Bagger said, picking up the dog. “He runs messages for command, keeps the rat population under control, wins me money in the trenches, and wakes soldiers when they’re almost late for their shift.” He plopped the terrier onto the upper bunk, where the furry alarm clock went to work rousing George.

When Max had finished waking all four boys, Boomer gave them ten minutes to visit the latrine, grab some food, and join him in the tunnel for the start of their shift. At the table, George and Charlie scarfed down strips of dried meat and dunked hard biscuits into cups of water to make them edible while Frederick sat on his bunk, sipping a cup of weak tea and reading the copy of Aeschylus’s play about Prometheus that he’d brought with him from Eton. Thomas picked at his food.

George reached over and grabbed one of Thomas’s biscuits. “Aren’t you eating, Tommy?” he asked, dipping the hard army ration into his water before popping it in his mouth.