Clenching his jaw, Thomas stared at the man standing in front of him. He counted the stitches straining along the seam of the man’s coat to keep his gaze from sliding back to the cheeky boy. He had to focus on the tasks at hand: securing the recruiting officer’s signal to move to the right, getting to the Western Front, and finding James. But first, he had to remember the correct name and date.

Timothy Bennett, March 1, 1899.

As the man at the front of the line stepped up to the table, Thomas took a deep breath and pulled back his shoulders. He licked his palms and ran them over his hair in an attempt to tame the half dozen cowlicks sticking up in every direction. He failed, but decided for once the disobedient tufts might be a blessing. They easily gave him another quarter inch of height.

While the officer questioned the older recruit, Thomas listened and shifted in his worn boots, trying to find a comfortable position. The scraps of cloth he’d used to line his boots in hopes of gaining some height had bunched into sweaty wads beneath his soles during the walk from Charing Cross to Trafalgar Square. They dug into him like pebbles with each step, and his feet ached from the long journey.

Before Thomas could review his fake identity one last time, the man in front of him stepped to the right, and Thomas stepped forward.

“Name,” the army officer stated without looking up from his paperwork.

“Timothy Ben—”

Thomas’s voice cracked, and the officer glanced up, taking in the smidge of a boy standing before him. Thomas cleared his throat. “Timothy Bennett, sir.”

The officer scribbled down the name. “Birth date?”

“March the first, 1899, sir.”

The officer glanced up again. “Today’s your birthday?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Your eighteenth birthday?”

Thomas pulled back his shoulders and lifted his chin. “Yes, sir. I wanted to join as soon as I was eligible.”

The officer’s eyes narrowed. Thomas fought the urge to look away from his scrutinizing stare.

After a tense moment, the officer wrote down the date. “Occupation?”

“Coal miner.”

“Years in the mines?” the officer asked, his voice deflated by the monotony of his questions.

“Eight.”

The officer raised an eyebrow above his bifocals. “Eight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What type of work do you do in the mines?”

“Demolition, sir.” Thomas had watched his dad and brother handle explosives in the mine enough to know the basics.

If the officer questioned him further, he was confident he could bluff his way through the answers, but when the boy leaning against the statue chuckled and muttered, “Sure you did,” Thomas flushed Union Jack red from his hairline to his collar.

“You handled explosives in the mines?” the officer asked, no longer attempting to disguise his disbelief.

Before Thomas could answer, a frigid wind snaked through the square, scattering the officer’s papers. Thomas scrambled after them, fetching each page before returning to the table.

“Thank you.” The officer took the papers and shuffled them into an orderly pile. “Your enthusiasm to serve is admirable, son,” he said, pushing his bifocals back up the bridge of his long, slender nose. “If we’re still at war in five years, come see me, but I’m afraid there’s no place for you in the army right now.”