With each shift, they extended the gallery toward the location for the Maedelstede Farm chamber, bracing the newly dug sections with timber. Nine inches at a time. While pulling the heavy bags of spoil to the tunnel entrance and dragging the unwieldy beams back to the tunnel face, Thomas often thought of his pony from the coal mine and wished he had Morty’s help in the tunnels. Thomas would distract himself from the burning pain in his back and arms by remembering his time with James and his dad while he worked. The memories helped pass the time until artillery fire rumbled through the gallery walls, like a giant clearing his throat, and Thomas’s thoughts snapped back to where he was and why he was there.

James.

Even with the additional help of Charlie and George, Thomas had found no information about his brother. The closest they’d come was a soldier who said James looked familiar, but then he admitted that after several months in the trenches, all soldiers had started to look familiar.

After weeks of digging, the boys hoped with every bag of spoil they hauled that the gallery was almost complete, but Bagger kept pushing the crew to dig farther and faster.

“How much longer are we going to make this tunnel?” George whispered to Bats during a shift, but the listener held a finger to his lips and set back to work at the wall.

When they retired to the dugout five hours later, hungry and worn to the bone, George asked again. Bagger did not look up from his food. “Until I tell you to stop.”

“And when will that be?” George pressed.

Bagger arched his back. It cracked with every twist and stretch. “When we’ve completed our mission.”

“What mission?” George asked. “The one you haven’t told us about?”

“Watch your tone, Shillings,” Bagger warned. “I haven’t had my tea yet.”

George poured a cup and sat down across from the crew leader. Bagger reached for the tea, but George pulled it away.

The rest of the crew stopped what they were doing and watched to see how Bagger would respond. Even Frederick paused in his writing and looked up from his notebook.

Bagger set down his ration.

“We’ve earned an answer,” George said. “Thomas almost died on our mission, doing our job. The least you can do is tell us why.”

“The boy’s got a point,” Mole said.

Bagger stared at George for a hard minute, then pushed away his plate. “Fine, but what I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this dugout, understand?”

George nodded, and the other boys gathered around the small table.

“That goes for all of you,” Bagger added. “No one outside the tunneling crews can know. Not even the infantrymen hauling our spoil beyond the trenches. The success of our mission depends on its secrecy.”

“We’re digging behind enemy lines, aren’t we?” Frederick asked. “So we can ambush them from behind?”

“Wrong again, Eton,” Bagger said.

“Then what’s our mission?” George asked.