Before You Start A War

Chapter Three

Over the next couple of days, the men continue to come in at night to collect the dead bodies. Their original number has almost been halved, with only thirteen men still remaining alive. Now, since all the men that are still left have not been injured during battle, Harry overhears a conversation between three of them about attempting to escape.

"That little one, we'd be able to get through him easy." One of the men whispers.

Another scoffs, not even trying to be discreet. "He's so adamant about making us believe he's not gonna hurt us. Such bollocks."

Harry eyes up the group of men, noticing their features. Two seem pretty young, probably still in their teen years, and the other has wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead, proving that he's much other than the two.

They continue to converse, leaning against the barn walls and facing each other. Their voices are loud, but Harry doesn't believe they're loud enough to be heard through the walls. He can see beneath their feet as the sun is just barely shining through the cracks, leaving his to assume it's nearly the night, when they normally get fed.

Later on, about an hour later, Niall readies himself with his loaves of cornbread. Since there's much less men, he's able to split the pieces bigger, and give out more water to each soldier. This morning when Niall checked, right as the men working the fields were starting to come out of their tents and cabins, there were no dead bodies. Niall is pretty good at slinking in and out of the barn early on, and at this point he's able to creak the door open without making a single sound. While sometimes it's hard to tell, since all the men are sleeping and it's very dark on the inside, he always spends a few seconds on each body to see if their chests are rising and falling. When he finishes taking a count of the remaining men, he notifies the men working the fields to keep an eye on the barn, and goes to report back to Jackson.

During the day is when Niall gets his sleep. He sleeps in the tent just outside the barn that was provided to him, and though it's sometimes hard since some of the men in the fields talk very loudly, he normally is able to get at least four hours of shut eye.

Niall feels very privileged to have this job, since he's excused from having to do any other day jobs, and is allowed to sleep outside of the normal hours. Of course, he tries to do as much as he can around the camp when he is awake, but he finds himself always spending time outside the barn.

It's normally just before the evening meal when he goes to collect the food for the men inside the barn, since that's right when the men in the fields are preparing to come back in to eat, so he can ask a few of them to stick around while he completes what he has to do. That's also when he provides an evening report to Jackson, since it's during the day that he checks the perimeter of the barn and listens in on any conversations going on inside. So far, there hasn't been much to report other than a few slightly loose boards, which were refortified immediately.

Whenever Niall reports to Jackson, he tries to sneak an answer out of him on what they plan on doing with the men. So far, he hasn't been able to get any information, but he feels eventually Jackson will leak something, whether it be by accident or intentionally. He thinks Jackson is beginning to trust him.

Niall shakes his head, laughing slightly as his thoughts. Tonight, he doesn't have any men to accompany him into the barn, since there are no bodies to collect that he knew of. If he notices any tonight, they'll have to wait until tomorrow. Niall puts his rifle down, not that he's had to use it much recently, and begins to open the barn doors. He still doesn't have a very effective way of locking the doors while he's inside, so currently he just ties a rope between the door handles so it won't open.

He enters, looking around at the men. They've grown used to him coming in, and only a few jump at his presence. A few are already standing, but most are sitting and lying on the uncomfortable ground. Maybe now, since there's less of them, he could convince the corporal to provide some sort of quilt for each man, especially since the winter season is coming up and it's beginning to get a bit cold. Niall hasn't spent a night in the barn, but he feels chills during the night, even when he's covered in the blanket, so he can only imagine how cold these men are. Niall ties the rope around the handles, and then turns back to the men. They've already started to form a line for water.