Frederick closed his notebook. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes … No … I don’t know. I just need you to do me a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“I need you to write me two letters.”

His curiosity piqued, Frederick opened his notebook to a clean page. “To whom?”

“You’re not going to like the first.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need you to write to your father.”

Frederick snapped the notebook closed again. “You’re right. I don’t like it.”

“But he’s the only one who can help.”

“Help what? Send me home?”

“No. Find James.” George ran a hand through his hair. “We’ll never find out what happened to him searching the trenches, and with the end of the mission less than three days away, we’re running out of time. Your dad is our best hope. He could ask around. Someone higher up has to know what happened to Thomas’s brother.”

“He’ll send for me the minute he gets the letter,” Frederick said.

“Who cares if he drags you home? Get out of these tunnels before you end up under the poppy field with Bagger and Bats.”

“I can’t go home.” Frederick grabbed his notebook and pen and stood. “Not yet.” Then he left the dugout.

George followed him into the tunnels. “Why not?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, George.”

“Because of your father?”

“No.” Frederick kept walking, determined to get out of the tunnels and away from George, but George ran ahead of him and blocked the exit.

“Let me pass,” Frederick said.

“Not until you tell me why you can’t go home.”

“Why do you care?” Frederick asked.

“Because whatever the reason, it’s stopping you from helping Thomas find his brother.”

Frederick’s shoulders slumped.

“Why can’t you go home, Eton?” George repeated.

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“Because I haven’t done what I came here to do.”

“And what’s that?”

Frederick’s head dipped. He exited the tunnel and sat down in a small dugout in the support trench wall. “Prove I’m not a coward.”

George followed him outside. “To who?” he asked, his voice rising with frustration. “Your father?”

“No.” Frederick pulled the broken white feather from his pocket. “To myself.”

George stared at the feather. He’d seen men on the streets of London receive white feathers for not joining the army. He didn’t know who had given Frederick the feather, but he knew what it meant. “Eton, you’re not a coward. Look at all you’ve done. Charlie and I would be buried beside Bagger and Bats if it weren’t for you. You’re as real a soldier as any man on the front line, and I’ll fight anyone who dares say otherwise.”

Machine-gun fire ripped across no-man’s-land, shattering the silent stalemate between the trenches. Frederick crouched down behind the sandbags. When he realized he wasn’t in danger, he looked up at George. “Real soldiers don’t run away from a fight or hesitate in the heat of battle. They don’t tremble in fear in their bunks or cry over the enemies they’ve killed.”