The rank on his arm burned. A Lance-Corporal’s duty was to give orders. But the manual—the one they’d been given with the pretty illustrations of clean-shaven boys saluting—didn’t cover this. No page on which boy to push into the blast.
“You want to lead, Gutter-rat?” Thorne’s voice was a wet rasp, half-phlegm, half-gravel. He tapped the three faded chevrons stitched onto his own tunic. “Then earn these. Not the ones your mummy sewed on before breakfast. These. ”
He looked down at his own buckle. Tarnished. Scratched. He’d found it on a corpse two winters ago. Tied to it with a frayed bootlace was a single, dented whistle. The whistle of a Brigade Captain. Eli had never blown it. To blow it was to claim command, and command meant making choices that got other boys killed. boy brigade rank
He could shout “Down!” but they’d only be half-prone. He could run, but that would leave the others. He could—
He stood up, wiped mud from his mouth, and pointed toward the far trench. The rank on his arm burned
And somewhere in the dark, Corporal Thorne—watching through a periscope from the safety of the rear—lowered the lens and whispered a single word to himself.
Tonight, the Brigade was going over the top. No page on which boy to push into the blast
Eli froze. He’d seen this before. A German “S-mine.” The Bouncing Betty. Step on it, and it jumps to waist height before shredding everything in a circle of steel.