Halfway through the tunnel, Sourer stepped on a pressure plate.
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.
The brass buckle of Corporal Thorne’s belt was the only clean thing in the mud for a mile. It caught the dying sun like a taunt, and thirteen-year-old Eli found himself staring at it instead of the Corporal’s eyes.
Halfway through the tunnel, Sourer stepped on a pressure plate.
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
The brass buckle of Corporal Thorne’s belt was the only clean thing in the mud for a mile. It caught the dying sun like a taunt, and thirteen-year-old Eli found himself staring at it instead of the Corporal’s eyes. Halfway through the tunnel, Sourer stepped on a