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CHAPTER 1
MACHINE-GUN FIRE TORE across the narrow, lifeless stretch of muddied earth separating the armies of the Allies and the Central Powers. The soldiers called it no-man's-land, but the battlefield was not barren of men. British and German. Belgian and French. It claimed them all. Without prejudice and without mercy.
A young soldier crouched behind a trench wall. He clutched his rifle to his chest and strained to hear through the din of gunfire, but only the thundering booms of the German howitzer cannons interrupted the rapid pulse of the machine guns. The enemy launched artillery shells high into the sky above no-man's-land. They screeched like banshees as they plummeted back to earth, exploding on impact — before, behind, and inside the Allies' trenches — with deafening blasts.
The soldier covered his head as clods of dirt and splintered wood rained down on his helmet. Shrapnel sliced through the trench, embedding in sandbags, timber, flesh. Seconds later, medics carrying stretchers squeezed past the soldier in their rush to aid the injured and remove the dead.
The Allies returned fire. Bursts from their machine guns rattled through the soldier's bones. Each explosion and answering volley of gunfire twisted his muscles, tighter and tighter, until he feared that when the command finally came, he wouldn't be able to move. Securing his rifle in the crook of his arm, he rubbed his hands together to regain some warmth and feeling. When they tingled again with circulation, he raked his fingernails across his arms and neck to relieve the constant itch of body lice. He scratched until he drew blood, welcoming the momentary distraction the pain produced, but the itching and fear returned the second he stopped.
Hardened candle wax filled every seam of his shirt and trousers, and scorch marks marred the heavy wool of his uniform, evidence of his desperate attempts to burn the rice-sized lice from his clothes, but it was a losing battle. In the trenches, there were always more lice to kill. Just as there were always more enemies to fight.
A spray of bullets slashed across the sandbags at the top of the parapet. The young soldier looked to his brothers-in-arms, pressed shoulder to shoulder along the trench wall. The officer to his left stood closest to the ladder. His righthand held his rifle. His left gripped the fourth rung. He would be the first to go over the top. The young soldier would follow.
Cold tension seized his muscles again at the thought of leaving the protection of the trench and charging across the open field with nothing between him and the enemies' bullets except one hundred yards of battle-scarred terrain and God's will. He stared at the officer, hoping to gain an ounce of courage from the veteran warrior. If the officer could survive three trips onto no-man's-land, surely the young soldier could survive one. But the officer offered no steely gaze or words of encouragement. His eyes were squeezed shut, and the only words on his lips were panicked prayers.
Blowing into his numb hands one last time, the young soldier lifted his rifle and whispered his own prayer. As if in response to his pleas, the gunfire stopped. The soldier listened for the high-pitched whistle signaling the start of their attack on the enemy position. Word of their imminent charge had reached the men as they'd choked down their morning ration of cold pea soup and dried turnip bread. What little appetite the young soldier had possessed curdled with the news, so he left his ration for another soldier and sat in his dugout, waiting for the signal and praying for courage. Hours later, he'd still received neither.
The howitzer cannons of the enemy fired again, but no explosions followed, only the dull thud of metal falling on sodden soil. The soldier climbed onto the fire step and peeredthrough a narrow hole in the sandbags. Greenish-gray smoke spewed from canisters littering no-man's-land. A steady evening breeze carried the chlorine gas, tinged with the scent of pepper and pineapple, across the battlefield, toward the Allied troops.
"Gas!"
Panicked screams raced through the trenches as the poisonous fog spilled over the parapet and into the narrow ditches. The soldier yanked off his helmet and fumbled for his gas mask. He couldn't risk even one breath. Just one lungful of chlorine gas produced coughing and spasms. A second brought confusion and delirium. A third rendered you unconscious. And a fourth delivered death.
They'd run gas mask drills every day since he'd arrived in Ypres, but never had the soldier's hands trembled so violently. The gas settled in the trenches like a toxic river. Soldiers struggled to hold their heads above the poisonous fumes while keeping them tucked below the trench walls as they secured their masks. Enemy snipers picked off those who failed.
A bullet struck the left shoulder of the officer clutching the ladder. Before the soldier could grab him, the officer lost his grip and fell into the deadly fog slithering through the trench. The gas struck like a snake, fast and merciless. The officer clutched his throat and writhed on the wooden duckboards lining the trench floor. His mouth contorted with pain, and his eyes bulged in terror as he choked and coughed. The young soldier looked away. The only help he could offer was a bullet, but the soldier needed all of his for the enemy. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and mucous flowed from his nose as he tucked his head lower and secured his mask. Now, finally, a high-pitched whistle pierced the panicked, agonizing screams filling the trenches. A muffled command followed: "Over the top, boys!"
Muttering one last prayer, the soldier stepped over the officer's motionless body and climbed onto no-man's-land.
CHAPTER 2
THOMAS SULLIVAN HAD broken two of the Ten Commandments before dawn. Hours later, as he stood in line at Trafalgar Square, sandwiched between men a decade older and a head and a half taller, he prepared to break a third.
Timothy Bennett, March 1, 1899.
Timothy Bennett, March 1, 1899.
Thomas silently rehearsed the lie, burying the truth under constant repetition and an occasional prayer. Having already committed two sins, he worried his prayers might go unanswered, but reminded himself that he'd sinned for a righteous reason, which had to count for something. He whispered another Hail Mary, just in case, and rubbed a hand over his face, hoping to discover that at least one wiry hair had sprouted on his chin during the long train ride from Dover to London, including two disappointing stops in Canterbury and Rochester, but his calloused fingers found only smooth skin. Shielding his eyes from the glare of the late-afternoon sun, Thomas peeked around the man in front of him and counted the recruits standing between him and the wooden table flanked by two of Trafalgar's famed lion sculptures.
Six.
Far fewer than when he'd joined the line three hours earlier. Army officers stood behind the table, asking questions and taking notes. If they accepted your answers, they ushered you to the right. If they rejected them, they dismissed you to the left.
Please, God, Thomas prayed. Let them point right.
As the line moved forward, his stomach complained with a deep growl. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed the small potato his mother had given him before his eight-mile walk to the coal mine that morning. Despite its dusty, puckered skin and knotty bumps, Thomas hungered for it. His stomach grumbled again. If the men pointed left, the potato would be all that stood between him and starvation.
Timothy Bennett, March 1, 1899.
The month and day didn't matter. Only the year. That was the cutoff. No exceptions — except for the exceptions. Tens of thousands of them, all over Britain. Boys who looked the part and memorized the correct year: 1899. Thomas repeated it again, not out of concern he'd forget, but out of determination that this time the lie would work. This time the recruiting officer would point right.
Thomas had already been rejected twice before reaching London. Once in Canterbury, when a miner from Dover recognized him entering a factory being used as a temporary recruitment office, and once in Rochester, when an officer told him the army didn't have time for children wishing to play soldier. Each failure forced him to spend more of his shillings on another train ride, taking Thomas farther from home. If he was rejected again, he would never get back to Dover before his parents noticed he and the food money he'd borrowed for his train tickets were missing.
Guilt tightened around Thomas's chest. He didn't like disobeying his parents or taking what little money they'd saved, but after his brother had left to join the army and their father's hours in the mine had been reduced due to his failing health, the pittance Thomas made as a pony driver at the mine didn't put enough food on the table. His parents would be better off without another mouth to feed. Besides, he had to find James. The first and only letter they'd received from his brother stated he'd finished training and his unit was headed to the Western Front and a battlefield near the town of Ypres in western Belgium. He'd promised to send word again soon, but word never came.
When news of the Germans using poisonous gas on the Allied troops reached Dover, followed a month later by a B 104-83 form letter from the army stating that James was missing, Dad refused to discuss the matter, and Mum feared the worst and fell into deep despair. But Thomas knew there had to be another reason for his brother's silence.
Perhaps he'd been captured by the enemy and was being held prisoner. Perhaps he was injured and lying unconscious in an Allied hospital. Or perhaps James was working as a spy and had been chosen for a secret mission, so all information regarding his whereabouts was classified.
There were many perhapses to consider, and Thomas was determined to rule out every single one before he'd consider the one he couldn't bear to think of ... To rule out the rest, he first had to get to the Ypres Salient, the stretch of battlefield where the Allied line, like a war-ravaged peninsula, jutted six miles into the German-held higher ground. And for Thomas there was only one road to the Allies' front line, and its gatekeeper stood on the other side of the recruitment table.
Thomas reached up and fiddled with two small medals hanging from a tarnished necklace at his throat. He ran his finger over their raised images. His mum had placed the dull chain and Saint Barbara medal around his neck the morning he turned ten and first headed off to the coal mine with his dad and James. Saint Barbara was the patron saint of miners and would watch over him when Mum could not.
James had given Thomas the second medal before he left for the war. The Saint Joseph medal had belonged to their grandad, who gave it to James on his deathbed. Now it belonged to Thomas, but not for long. He pressed both medals against his chest. He didn't care how many broken commandments it took, he would find his brother and return the medal to him. He had to.
The memory of James, dressed in his army uniform, boarding the train in Dover, led Thomas's thoughts back home. The bustling streets of London, crammed tight with tall, soot-covered buildings and swarms of loud people competing for everyone's attention and money, were a far cry from the dirt roads of Dover, where the colliery village residents trudged home too tired from a day in the mines to lift their heads in greeting, much less to gather in the town square to scream about politics and the war.
Thomas shut his eyes against the noise and movement swirling around him and focused on the memory of racing James to the cliffs of Dover. On their days off from the mine, they'd sit atop the cliffs, dangling their legs over the edge, and James would talk about how one day they'd buy their own boat and transport goods across the English Channel.
"Someday, Tommy, we'll have a whole fleet of boats," James would say. "Sullivan Brothers Shipping will be the best shipping company to sail the Strait of Dover. We'll get Dad out of the mines before black lung claims him like Grandad, and we'll never have to crawl beneath the ground again. Won't it be grand, Tommy?" Then he'd reach over and muss up Thomas's hair until every one of his cowlicks stood at attention. The brothers would spend the day talking and laughing as their bare feet rubbed against the silky white chalk of the cliff wall. They'd squint across the Channel, searching for the faint outline of France's coast and dreaming of a future far from the dark and damp of the coal mines.
A phonograph stood on a small table to the left of one of the recruiting officers, playing John McCormack's rendition of "It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary." Thomas watched the weighted needle bob gently atop the spinning record, marveling at how it pulled music from the etched grooves into the phonograph's large brass horn, amplifying McCormack's voice for everyone in the square to enjoy. Thomas tapped his foot along to the beat to calm the twitchy anxiety building in his muscles.
Not far from the phonograph table, a young gentleman in a fitted suit leaned casually against one of the lion statues and seemed to be watching Thomas. A newsboy cap sat at a jaunty angle atop his head, and he wore a smug smile that made Thomas's palms sweat. It was as if he already knew the lie that Thomas was getting ready to tell.
Thomas had first noticed the gentleman two hours earlier and wondered at the time if he was waiting for the line to shorten before joining it. But as the minutes slogged by, the man made no move from his reclined position against the statue except to light his next cigarette from the dimming stub of his last.
The line moved forward again, and Thomas's view of the man sharpened. What he'd believed to be a fitted suit was on closer inspection a tattered pair of trousers and a discolored coat, two sizes too small. And the cap nesting in his mop of unruly ginger curls was dull with age and frayed with wear. This was no gentleman overseeing recruitment to root out the charlatans hoping to join Kitchener's Army. At best, he was a beggar loitering in Trafalgar Square in search of handouts. At worst, he was a con man sniffing out his next mark.
Eight years earlier, when Thomas's dad moved their family from Ballingarry, Ireland, to Britain in search of mining work, his mum had cautioned him and his brother to steer clear of what she called "street urchins" as they'd made their way across London from one train station to another.
Even at age five, Thomas had sensed something unsettling behind their overly friendly smiles and piercing gazes and he'd pressed closer to his mum. He felt a warning twist in the pit of his stomach now as it occurred to him that his small size made him the perfect mark for such a predator. His hand wandered again to the necklace tucked beneath his shirt, but remembering he was being watched, Thomas shoved his hand in his pocket and wrapped his fingers protectively around the potato. The man might take his food, but he'd never get his Saint Joseph medal. There was only one person worthy of that medal, and it wasn't some London pickpocket.
His concerns about the man lessened as the line moved forward again and he saw that what he'd thought was a thick beard darkening the man's face was not hair, but soot and grime. The beggar was merely a scruffy boy, and though he was taller and undoubtedly older than Thomas, he no more belonged in that line than Thomas did, which was perhaps why he refused to join it.
Between long drags on his cigarette, the street urchin whistled loudly to the music, drowning out the Irish tenor's stirring voice with his shrill, off-key accompaniment. When he noticed Thomas glaring at him, the lanky boy blew out several quick, piercing notes, each carried on a puff of smoke, and winked at Thomas.
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.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Secret Soldiers"
by .
Copyright © 2019 Keely Hutton.
Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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