Sena found the enemy soldier putting stones on a sheet. He was doing it one-handed, using his good elbow to keep the rest of the cloth flat. Beneath it something rose in the shape of a person trying to crawl.
She raised her weapon. He shook his head so violently that blood ran from his ear.
"Don't make it open."
The sheet subsided. It lay on bare earth, with no body visible beneath its thin white folds.
Sena had lost her stretcher team in the orchard. She had followed a ditch until it became a trench, hoping to find a route toward the abandoned pumping station. Instead she had found this conscript, younger than she was, with his sleeve tied above a dark wet patch.
"Where are the others?" she asked.
He pointed at the sheet.
From the ridge, a recorded voice offered safe passage to anyone laying down their arms. The message had played every half hour since dawn. Sena could hear a little crackle before the word safe, always in the same place.
The cloth lifted.
It had shoulders now. A ridge traveled beneath it, pressing first against one stone, then another. The soldier lay across the nearest edge, keeping it pinned with his body. Sena saw his face change as something moved underneath his ribs.
She put her boot on a lifting corner. It pushed back with the strength of a large man's shoulder.
The recording ended. The cloth settled.
"It keeps the words," the soldier said.
He told her his name was Olek. Two of them had come out carrying the sheet after hearing the first announcement. Shots had driven them back into the ditch. One man had fallen on the cloth. When Olek pulled it away, the thing under it continued trying to stand.
The dead man's body was still beside the ditch. Sena could see one boot beyond the bend. Whatever was under the sheet had left him there.
Olek's injured arm trembled. Sena knelt beside him and examined the wound without touching the white material he had used as a dressing. A narrow strip had come from the sheet. It tightened when she brought her fingers near it, then loosened in a way that resembled a tongue tasting air.
She cut the strip free with her utility shears. It crawled across the soil toward the larger cloth. Olek watched it go with a stillness she found worse than screaming.
They used dark pieces of his shirt to bind the wound. He asked which unit she belonged to. She told him. For a moment he looked as if he might prefer the sheet.
"I carry people," she said.
He glanced at the weapon hanging against her side but did not answer.
The ammunition chest was half buried beside the trench wall. Its lid would close if they removed the earth from the hinge. Working together, they freed it and pushed the corners of the sheet inside with a broken plank. Neither wanted to touch the part that had taken the shape of shoulders.
The next announcement began before they had finished.
Something struck the underside of Sena's jaw through the cloth. Her teeth met. Olek pulled her backward while the sheet dragged itself over the chest's rim. She pushed the lid down with her knee. For several seconds the box rocked under her, the voice from the ridge promising that nobody would be harmed.
When the recording stopped, she found a strip of white cloth caught in the fastening of her sleeve.
Olek pulled it loose and tucked it into the chest. They closed the lid properly this time. Sena sat on it until her breathing slowed. She could taste the inside of her bitten lip.
They stayed under the trench's overhang as darkness fell, telling each other when they heard the announcement begin. Olek shivered against her shoulder. He apologized each time his head slipped. She asked him what he had done before the war, and he said he had fitted kitchens. Then he described a cabinet he had never managed to hang straight, although the customer's floor was the thing at fault.
At dawn they heard men approaching from Sena's side of the lines. She recognized their language and the way they called to one another. She stood and shouted her unit, keeping the weapon on the ground.
The men stopped beyond the ditch. They could see Olek's uniform against her leg.
"Hands up. Both of you."
Olek could not raise his wounded arm. Sena tried to explain. A weapon moved above the bank, searching for a clear angle.
Sena raised both hands. From the ridge came the familiar crackle before the promise of safe passage. Something white crept out of her cuff: a scrap that had remained caught beneath the metal fastening when Olek removed the larger strip. It gathered in her open palm. A small shoulder began pushing upward, visible now to the men above the ditch.
"Drop what you're holding," the voice called.
Olek leaned against her, trusting the language she understood. Sena looked at the strip of sky above the trench and tried to find a way to show an empty hand.
