Young German coal miners, Ernst Wagner and Karl Babek
have also been thrust into the war. They have been
brought, along with thousands of other men and boys,
from the mining villages in Bavaria.
The
soldier-miners from both sides drive their narrow
tunnels under no man's land. Attempting to out-manoeuvre
and undermine each other they create a great labyrinth
of tunnels. It's a silent and savage war where one tiny
sound can turn a man from hunter to hunted, where
skilled listeners are more sought after than fighters.
And
after two years of claustrophobia and bloodshed, of
triumph and heartbreak, it all comes down to a single
moment. As infantrymen quietly fix bayonets in the
darkness, Oliver Woodward crouches in a muddy bunker
preparing to press a detonator that could change the
course of the war....