That morning, mail call was at ten. He had once hovered during the delivery of packages and envelopes, and when each man had retreated to a chair in the mess or to his bunk, he had watched the range of emotions on their faces, and then had gone back to whatever he had been doing before. Now he didn’t want a letter from home, and people who relied on them weren’t self-sufficient.

Today, ten o’clock was dog-training time. Nanette already knew “sit” and “down,” which Harry told him was astonishing (Lee suspected that Harry would say everything Nanette did was astonishing), and he was working on “stay” while walking backward across the muddy causeway of the aerodrome. It was a perfect area for training, in that there were many distractions: rain drizzling; men crossing to and fro, some running and laughing, others carrying equipment, and still others pushing wheelbarrows full of sand toward the landing field, where the noise of engines gunning and sputtering was a constant background music.

“Stay,” Lee said, walking backward, and Nanette watched him from her “down” position, unblinking. The wind ruffled her fur; she narrowed her eyes but still did not blink.

Boy was tied with a piece of rope to a fence, because he was capable of learning exactly nothing. Lee had tried teaching them together at first, and then separately, but when Lee made hand gestures, Boy only followed his fingers with curiosity, and when he spoke—Sit! Down!—the expression changed to fear.

“Oh, come on!” Lee cried during one frustrating session. “Down!” And he knocked Boy’s legs out from under him.

There was a quick yelp. Lying on the ground, in the mud, Boy showed his stomach in supplication, and his eyes rimmed with tears. He had urinated on himself with fright.

“I’m sorry,” Lee said, rubbing the dog’s face. “You don’t understand yet.” Boy licked him.

Lee turned his attention fully to Nanette, thinking it didn’t really matter what Boy was called. He wouldn’t come yet in any language, Allied or enemy. But: walking backward, crouched over, intoning “stay,” he saw Boy lurch upright from the ground and begin to walk slowly to the end of his long lead. He was limping.

“Oh,” Lee said at exactly the same time that someone behind him cried out, “Oh, little puppy!”

It was Pfc. Thomas, who worked in the mess, stirring pots of boiled and stewed meats. Thomas had just left his shift and was returning to the barracks. “Nanette is limping,” he said.

“That’s Boy,” Lee said. “He must have …” He walked to the puppy and picked him up and cradled him.

“I have a dog,” Thomas said. He began testing Boy’s paw pads, tapping on each of them. “His name is Firefly, and Mom says he waits by the mailbox every day.”

“That’s great,” Lee said.