"This, soldier, is treason at its finest."

Major General Wackysacky looks at me, clearly angered.

My index finger rests against the trigger of my rifle, even though the barrel is pointed at the ground.

"Then I'm a traitor," I say back, a bite to my words. I realize immediately how stupid that is, considering he is my major general.

Some of the anger dissipates from the general's face. "No, you're a fool. It's common among young men such as yourself."

Irritation digs its way under my skin. "Traitor, fool, whatever you want to call me. But I won't leave my fellow man to bleed out.

I pause a moment. "Especially not in a war neither of us asked for."

I'm about to leave the tent when the general speaks up.

"If you don't find a way to justify what you've done, I will shoot that soldier." He looks me dead in the eye. "And you."

I fight the urge to sneer. "He's my prisoner, then. That's what you can tell your men."

I leave the tent without so much as a salute and trudge back to mine, trying to ignore the hateful looks being thrown my way.

In my tent, the German soldier lies shivering.

I sigh, set my gun down, and sit next to him. He pulls away, cowering against the tent wall.

No, not cowering. I've seen this before. It's the coil of a snake before it lunges.

"I don't want to hurt you," I say.

He continues to stare at me, as if studying me. He glances at my rifle, which lies at his feet, and utters something in German.

I raise a brow. "Sorry, but I don't understand German."

He sighs, irritated, and sits up, wincing as the pain presumably hits him. Then, in the most ear-flattering German accent I've ever heard, says, "And yet your rifle lies at my feet."

Oh, so he does speak English.

I don't move, except to wave my arm vaguely at his mid-riff. "You shouldn't be moving. You'll pull your stitches."

He glances down to the bandages wrapped around his chest and stomach. "Eh, it doesn't---"

"Lay yourself back down before I make you," I say sternly. "Don't forget, you're formally classified as my prisoner."

He gives me a distrustful look but lays back down.

Well, that wasn't the right thing to say.

I sigh again. "If I wanted to kill you, I'd have done it already."

There's a moment of silence.

"Why didn't you?"

I think on that.

"Because you were injured and unarmed. Because you looked so incredibly small. Because you're another human being, and I have no right to kill you. But most importantly? I won't be a discardable pawn in their game of war."

The German is quiet. Then, he says, "Say you were high up. Say they couldn't discard you so easily. Would you have killed me then?"

I meet his eyes with what I hope looks like determination. "If I was still me, absolutely not."

He finally cracks a small smile. "I should hope not."

I tap my knees and inhale. "Well, I'll get you something to eat."

The act of stealing a ration pack isn't hard.

Especially if you know the right people.

Ten minutes later, the German is scarfing down hard tack and a biscuit.

I watch him curiously, a strange need to know this man settling in my body like a second skin.

He glances up at me. "Something wrong?"

I blink and rest my chin in my palm. "Nothing."

When he finishes eating, he lays down. I lay down away from him. We are, fortunately, both side-sleepers.

The next morning, I am hoping to be woken by joyous ruckus.

My hopes are quickly crushed.

When my eyes blink open, I hear a whistling.

The German and I both sit up at the same time.

Half a second later, the ground implodes.

I tun instinctively, bracing my head like a scared child. For a moment, amidst the sound and rain and light, I think to turn my head slightly, separating my forearms to get a peek at the German next to me. He hasn't moved an inch. Right, I think. His stitches will pop.

I roll him under me without thinking.

Eventually, after what feels like eternity, the blast subsides and he is left there, shaking beneath me as I extract myself from the position, trying my best to not make a show of checking him for injuries.

"Are you alright?" He asks, or at least I think he does, because my ears are still ringing.

"Yes," I say, brushing debris from my jacket. "I should be asking you. Are you hurt?"

"No," he says, and a sliver of light from a hole in the trenches catches on his red-brown hair. "I am alright."

"Good," I sigh.

The two of us sit there for a moment, dust settling around us like the most violent of snowfalls. Somewhere outside the trench, men are shouting. Someone screams for a medic. I want to move, I know I should move, but for a second all I can do is look at him and think about how strange it is that his side just tried to kill us both at once.

"You should not have done that," he says finally, nodding toward where I'd thrown myself over him.

"Done what?"

"You know what." His eyes, gray as the smoke still curling above us, narrow slightly. "If a shell had landed closer, it would have been you instead of me."

I shrug like it's nothing, even though my hands are still trembling from the adrenaline. "Would've been a shame to lose a translator. You're the only interesting conversation I've had in months."

The whistling starts again, and I grab him by the arm before he can protest and pull him further into the dugout, pressing us both against the earthen wall like it might save us from a direct hit. It probably wouldn't. But it's something to do with my hands besides shake.

"Your commanding officer," he says, voice tight, "he will not be pleased you keep saving the enemy."

"My commanding officer can take it up with God, because apparently He wants you alive too." I glance sideways at him. "Seeing as He keeps missing."

The second shell lands further off than the first, close enough to rattle loose dirt from the trench wall onto our shoulders, far enough that neither of us flinches as badly. When the ringing in my ears fades to something more like a dull hum, I risk peering over the edge of the dugout. Through the thick fog of smoke and the ground littered with craters, a line of men move toward the forward posts. No sign, yet, of the general.

"We should stay down," I mutter, mostly to myself.

I glance back at him. He's got one hand pressed to his side, over the bandages, and I feel a fresh stab of guilt for rolling him under me like a sandbag.

"Let me see," I say, reaching for the hem of his shirt.

He bats my hand away, surprisingly strong for someone who was shivering and half-starved not twelve hours ago. "It is fine."

"It is not fine, it's stitched shut with catgut and a fishing knot. Let me look."

"You are very demanding for a man who claims to respect me."

"I contain multitudes," I say, and this time when I reach for the bandage, he lets me.

The wound hasn't fully reopened, though a faint pink seep sits at one corner where the thread's pulled tight.

"You're lucky," I tell him.

"I have been telling myself that since I woke up in an American's tent instead of a ditch." He watches me re-tie the bandage carefully. "Why do you do this?"

I don't look up. "Do what?"

"Fuss over me. Feed me. Throw yourself over my body during artillery fire." A pause. "It is not what soldiers do to prisoners, in my experience."

I finish the knot and sit back on my heels, meeting his eyes. Up close, in the gray morning light filtering through the smoke, there's a ring of pale gold around the pupil, barely visible unless you're close enough to be doing exactly what I'm doing.

"Maybe I'm not much of a soldier," I say quietly. "Maybe I never was."

"Then what are you?"

Before I can answer, a voice barks down the trench line. Corporal Hayes, rifle slung wrong across his back. "Sir! General wants you. Now."

I close my eyes for half a second. "Stay here," I tell the German, already reaching for my rifle. "Don't move."

"I will do my best," he says dryly.

I almost laugh. I don't have time to before Hayes shoves a finger behind him, boots sinking into mud gone soft with shellwater and blood, bracing myself for whatever Wackysacky's about to throw at me: and hoping, more than I'd like to admit, that I make it back to that dugout before nightfall.