Convinced he’d dreamed the noise, Frederick had started to lie back down when he heard more panicked whimpers and incoherent mumbling from across the room. He crept over to the lower bunk where Thomas, in the grip of a nightmare, twitched and thrashed in his bed.

“Thomas,” he whispered.

“No,” Thomas mumbled in his sleep.

Frederick shook his shoulder. “Thomas.”

Thomas’s eyes sprang open. “James, no!” He flinched away from Frederick’s hand. Except for a couple of stubborn cowlicks, his blond hair stuck to his sweaty forehead in dark clumps, and his chest heaved with stuttered, panicked breaths.

“It’s okay,” Frederick whispered. “You were having a nightmare.”

His eyes wide and unblinking, Thomas stared at Frederick. “Where am I?”

“In the dugout. There was an accident. Do you remember?”

“An accident?” Thomas repeated, his voice hollow and his brow furrowed in thought. He squeezed his eyes closed and kneaded his forehead with unsteady fingers.

“Yes, but we’re safe now.”

Thomas nodded as lingering images from his nightmare vanished and memories of the day reemerged. “Feathers died.”

Guilt squeezed around Frederick’s chest at the memory of Charlie’s face as he pointed to the small canary lying motionless at the bottom of the cage. “Yes. But the important thing is you’re all right. You just need rest.” He grabbed a flask of water from the table. “And something to drink.” He offered the flask to Thomas.

Thomas took a small sip and handed it back. “We buried him.”

“Who?” Frederick asked. “Feathers?”

Thomas nodded again, shaking the last cobwebs of poisoned sleep from his brain. “He was part of our crew, so George, Charlie, and I buried him.”

“Oh.” Frederick glanced up at Charlie asleep on his bunk, his hand still resting against the new canary cage. With a heavy sigh, he placed the flask back on the table. “Thomas, about what happened down in the gallery—”

The bunk above Thomas creaked beneath George’s shifting weight. “We all know what happened in the gallery,” George said, swinging his legs over the edge of his bunk and landing beside Frederick. “You almost got Tommy killed.”

“I didn’t—”

“Do your job? We know, so why don’t you go back to your bunk and leave Tommy alone?”

“He was having a nightmare. I was just trying to help.”

“He doesn’t need your help, Eton.”

Charlie sat up, awakened by the heated conversation.

“George,” Thomas said, “leave it alone.”

“No. He nearly got you killed. He almost got us all killed. Someone needs to tell Eton what he is.”

“Enlighten me,” Frederick said, bracing himself for another fight with the London orphan. This time there’d be no clay kickers to stop them. “What am I?”

George leaned forward until his freckled nose almost touched Frederick’s. “You pretend to be a tough British soldier, but I’ve met guys like you before. All talk and bluster, but when things get rough, when it really counts, you run away because under all that talk, you’re nothing but a coward.”