Based on a true story, a teen-aged boy runs away from his foster placement to join a secret band of spies sent to the Western Front in World War I, where he poses as a deaf mute in order to obtain secrets and aid in the defense of Belgium and France.

SYNOPSIS:

William is one of eight children living in a Worcester, MA tenement, a middle son of Swedish immigrants. His father’s factory job is not enough to support his family, and when social services descend on the home, they remove the youngest children, William among them. He is placed with a family on a farm well outside of town, out of touch with his family.

After several years on the farm, as World War I ramps up, William tries to escape his foster home by enlisting, but at 15 he is too young. However, outside of the recruiting station, he meets a strange, ragged man who invites him to apply to a special program for overseas service. He provides a train ticket and instructions for where to go. William travels to Boston and along with several other misfit men, he is accepted into the fledgling spy program.

After a sea voyage on which he and his fellow spies are undercover and mistreated by the “real” merchant sailors, they are taken to a training camp at Amiens. Their handler, Harrison, an English officer, prepares them to go behind enemy lines to collect information. William decides to pose as a deaf mute in order to avoid the awkward problem of not speaking French or German. Before long, William is sent off to “ride the wing” of a SPAD piloted by an English pilot named Bradley.

After success in his first objective, the town of Mons, William is flown to Ghent. Reduced to begging for food and assaulted by many, he is nearly captured but manages to get away with some intelligence. Bradley drops him off at an allied base in Bar de Luc, but without proper ID, he is jailed as a spy. He appeals to his captors to ask the pilot about him, only to learn that Bradley’s plane has been shot down. In the nick of time, Harrison arrives and intervenes.

William is sent out to Sommes, where he connects with a blacksmith working for the Allies. He inadvertently gets himself a job as a cleaning boy at the German headquarters, where he tries to steer clear of the violent Officer Geier. When he witnesses Geier beat a man nearly to death, William kills for the first time, strangling Geier with a wire. He is able to get a few maps and papers before the Germans leave town. When the Allies arrive, William is swooped up by Harrison.

William is then sent to Cambrai, where the Germans have a rail yard. He must drop the deaf mute act and simply be invisible while he seeks intelligence. Spying on the headquarters, he finds the pilot Bradley, as well as some other prisoners, and he determines to rescue them. He sets a fire in the rail yard, which sets off the munitions on the cars. While the soldiers are dealing with the explosions, he breaks the prisoners free, and he and Bradley make it out to a check point.

Back at the Allied fields, his courage and resourcefulness earn him a position in the real army – as a bugle boy, heading for the Eastern front in Siberia.