"The Hessian" by Howard Fast

This one seems always to be on the summer reading list in high school. That could be because of its relatively shallow consideration of moral issues surrounding combatants in a war, and what they mean for people's lives.

During the American Revolution a young, addle-brained colonial boy brays obnoxiously at a Hessian detachment, which somewhat petutlantly arrests him, and eventually hangs him. Seemingly in return, a young Hessian soldier is taken prisoner after being hidden by a local family (I forget his transgression - sorry), given a cursory military trial, and hanged. Neither hanging is justified, except to the respective sides.

The story poses a full slate of moral and legal conundrums: what level of proof is needed to prove espionage during wartime?; when is a wartime combatant guilty of murder?; are life-or-death matters, when decided by human beings under pressure of war, conducive to justice?

This is a spare story; there is not a lot of background information on our main characters. I was left wishing for more.