“I should say they might survive without mother’s milk, but the girl in particular will never be robust. She might be prone to infections and colds. In America, they still have veterinarians to help you. Not so much here.” For a moment, Harry’s diction had become more Teutonic and fractured, as if his concern had overshadowed rules of grammar. “So, Corporal, what exactly do you want? Afterward?”

He didn’t need to explain what “afterward” meant—it was all anyone talked about.

“I’m not mocking you. You seem like a good fellow. We both seem to be interested in dogs, which is a start. I’m curious about their future.”

“Who are you?”

Harry considered this. “I always wait to see if a puppy will survive before naming her.”

Since this wasn’t what Lee had asked, he decided to play a game of patience. Finally, Harry smiled at him.

“It’s a courtesy of war. Speaking about oneself can so often go badly. Let us just stipulate: I know dogs reasonably well. I’ve trained dogs to be sentries and couriers and scouts and guard dogs. If I’d trained with chemicals, or munitions, I could be a millionaire when this is over, but, sadly, I know dogs and only dogs. And wine, of course.”

“Of course,” Lee said. It had been Harry’s vineyard. He considered telling Harry that the main building of his vineyard was on fire the last time he’d seen it. It struck him as wrongheaded, so instead he just watched how Harry handled the pups. He put Nanette up to the light and sighted down her side as if he were checking a pool cue for bowing. “She is truly going to be a fine dog,” he whispered. “At two months she will be as coordinated as a six-month-old puppy. At a year—well, I can hardly imagine.”

Lee threaded his fingers through the wire. “I wanted to be famous.”

Harry regarded Lee as if checking him, too, for bowing. “You ‘wanted’ that. In the past. Why?”

“I don’t know.” He watched the puppies breathing in Harry’s lap. He heard a strange, primal chirping sound. “They’re hungry,” he said.

Harry repositioned the pups, turning them over and staring at their bellies. The heads both lolled backward, flowers too heavy for their weakening stalks. “I can be honest with you, Corporal. They’re going to die soon,” Harry said. He was not being cruel. He was speaking instead with compassion, and Lee realized he was the only other person in the world who cared about these puppies.

“What can I do?”

“Ah,” Harry said, looking up. He met Lee’s eye approvingly. “At this late time, you care, and perhaps that’s what you’re built for.”

“Please, just tell me.”

Harry’s explanation was brief: it wasn’t just milk they needed, but beestings, the first milk given after birth. “What about the bitch who lost her litter? Did she reject these two? Yes, that happens.” Harry said that no one knew what chemicals were at play, but unless an animal drank the milk from a mother who had just given birth, or expecting, it would never thrive. “You must find such an animal and have them feed from her.”