Contents (45)
- DULCE ET DECORUM EST
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- EPILOGUE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- CONTENTS
THIRTY-FOUR
THE SUN HURT the young soldier’s eyes when he and twelve Allied prisoners were escorted from the German field hospital. Under the medical staff’s care, his wounds had scarred over without infection, and his broken leg had healed. His eyes watered when exposed to bright light, and though he could hear again, the low ringing in his ears remained. The nurses had fed him and the other injured prisoners, but food was scarce even for the German troops, leaving few scraps for their captives. During his recovery, the soldier had lost what little extra weight he’d carried with him when he’d charged into battle months earlier.
But he was alive. Through every aching step, twist of hunger, and nightmarish flashback, he reminded himself that he was alive. The young soldier tried not to dwell on what awaited him in the prison camp in Germany as he boarded a train with the other prisoners and their guards.
When the train stopped an hour later, the prisoners were marched for over two hours. In the distance, the young soldier heard the rumble of artillery and the staccato rhythm of machine-gun fire. With every dozen steps, the sounds of battle grew louder. As they crested a small rise of land, the young soldier’s steps faltered, and his heart sank at what lay before them. Crooked lines of trenches framed two sides of a pockmarked battlefield. His mouth went dry, and a sharp pain radiated from the center of his chest. They were not being taken to a prison camp to be used as laborers at German farms, factories, or mines. They were being marched back to the Western Front to work on the German front line.
THIRTY-FIVE
THE CREW SPENT their last few shifts hauling explosives down the tunnels to pack in the Maedelstede Farm mine, one of twenty-three hidden beneath a stretch of seven miles of enemy trenches. The beams above their heads groaned, and clots of clay shook free from between the boards under the constant bombardment of gunfire and howitzers raining down on no-man’s-land as the crew stacked the waterproof tins of ammonal from floor to ceiling in the chamber. Not an inch of space remained. Thomas helped Boomer embed an electric detonator, connected to the lead, into the powder of one of the tins before inserting loose detonators into every third tin crowding the chamber. They then ran the leads and fuse up to the top of the main shaft while the rest of the crew set to work tamping the mine.
“We spent months taking all of this clay out of here,” George complained as he lifted another heavy sandbag from the shaft onto the tram to be dragged down the gallery toward the Maedelstede Farm mine, where it would be stacked on the hundreds of bags already packed tightly in the gallery. The bag left a blue streak on the front of his shirt and trousers, which were already caked with wet clay. When it dried, the blue clay ground into the crew’s clothes and skin faded to a ghastly white, leaving the tunnelers looking like walking corpses. “Why are we hauling it all back down?”