“I’m sorry, old chap, is that what we should be discussing?” His accent was British. It wasn’t the schoolroom rote drummed into German officers. Lee had heard British soldiers, the enlisted men and otherwise, and though he didn’t understand every nuance, he recognized that this German prisoner’s accent came from somewhere above them, aristocrats.

“My name is Harry,” he continued.

“Good for you.”

“Five cigarettes for this milk,” he said smoothly.

“Why, what did you do to it?” Lee said.

Harry flashed a look of quiet disappointment at Lee. “While you were talking to your officer friend, I crumpled up some hardtack, and I added about an eyedropper of sherry and egg white.” He spoke as if the explanation made perfect sense. Lee began to ask why, and Harry continued: “Because dog milk is richer than cow milk, and you want to let them know there’s such a thing as solid food as soon as possible. And six.”

“Six what?”

“Cigarettes.”

The remaining prisoners were otherwise engaged, some of them just staring up at the rafters, others in a loose circle of chairs, playing Boston. Lee noted how Harry stood with his body hiding the milk from his Kameraden.

“Cigarettes fit through the wire just fine,” Lee said. “A can of milk, though …”

Harry smiled. He slid his foot forward and then flexed upward. The wire came with it. When the exchange had occurred—Lee had two puppies and a can of milk, and Harry had secreted the cigarettes somewhere—Lee looked back toward Harry, a tide of anxiety beginning to rise in him.

Harry said, “You need to dip your fingers in the milk, and smear it over their noses. They’ll get the hang of licking the milk off. Find an eye dropper and put it into their mouths if that doesn’t work. And you need to find them actual mother’s milk—if not from a dog, then perhaps a pregnant cow or goat.”

“Why?”

“And, I say, you should get your chocolate rations.”

“For them?”

Harry’s eyes re-evaluated Lee. “You know chocolate is poison to dogs? Tell me, then, are the fliers still eating white chocolate with nuts? Jolly good.”

Lee looked at the milk tin, and then the wire again, realizing he wasn’t going to sleep tonight.

“Don’t worry, Corporal, the rest of the men haven’t a clue about the wire. And if they did, what, do you think they would murder you in your sleep?” Harry chuckled again. “Perhaps all of us could escape and win the war after that. Goodbye.”

“Wait.” Lee had a number of questions to ask, but the flat blue eyes seemed to indicate that, the longer Lee kept Harry away from cigarettes, the more miserable his life would be. So he said, “But—who are you?”

“Tell me, Corporal. Did you find the dogs in a winery?”

“No,” he said, and when Harry kept staring, he said, “Yes.”