Before You Start A War

Chapter Four

When Niall comes in the next night, he doesn't take his gun off after his allies leave with the two bodies. The other man that he injured now has a long scar on his cheek, running from just below his temple to his chin. He sends him an angry look, but doesn't try anything as he collects his slice of bread.

Niall was unable to collect the equipment he left in the barn overnight, since when he opened the door, it was nowhere to be found, and he didn't want to leave the door unattended to look for it. Jackson wasn't pleased with Niall misplacing the jug, and there wasn't a second provided for him today. "No water today, men. You'll have to preserve what you have until we get something else to put it in." Niall calls out when he notices a few men about to come up to get their canteens filled. A few sighs and groans of frustration sound out. Niall only assumes some of them have already finished their water, so will be without for the time being.

Niall doesn't even think to ask what happened to the items, since he knows the men probably either collected them and are planning to make some sort of weapon out of them, or they destroyed the items somehow.

"And from now on, I will not be coming in here unarmed. I was hoping, by doing that, some of you would begin to trust that I do not plan to hurt you, but since it seems that's not the case, I will always be entering and leaving with my weapons on my person. Maybe, at some point in the future, I can stop that." Niall explains, looking over the remaining eleven men. Most of them are staring at him, glaring, but there's still that one set of curious eyes to his right. Niall looks over at him and catches his gaze.

Harry stares back, unwavering. He notices that Niall's rifle is loaded and ready to fire if need-be, but he hopes it never comes to that.

"I have informed the higher-ups of what occured last night, and they told me that if anything like that is to happen again, your food supply will be cut in half, and every time I enter, I must have another person accompanying me at all times. I do not want that, and I'm assuming none of you do either. It's up to you all to decide how you want your stay here to be."

Niall stops himself from speaking, looking around again. Normally, the soldiers do not reply when he speaks to them as a group like this, and he's surprised when one of them calls out, "Why are we even here? Is this just a sick joke to ya, waiting for all of us to die?"

It's a tall man that spoke, probably six inches taller than Niall is. The man looks around after speaking, and the rest of them seem to sit up a little straighter, listening closely.

Niall shakes his head, "If we were waiting for you all to die, would we really be providing you with food and water everyday?"

"Then why are we here?" The same man asks again, an aggravated look on his face.

"That is classified information. I am sorry." Niall speaks, collecting the newly provided cloth and sack, before untying the rope and exiting quickly. He closes and locks the door, sighing.

On the other side of the wood, Harry is looking around the room at his comrades. Most of the men have settled down to sleep, somehow finding comfort on the dirt floor. All the other remaining men have gathered together, speaking quietly amongst themselves.

"He's shitting us; they're definitely waiting for us all to die." A young man, probably slightly younger than Harry, spits out, enraged.

"But why are they feeding us then? Doesn't really make sense for them to waste food on us if they're just gonna let us all die in the end, Gregory." Another man, someone Harry remembers from training but can't place his name, rations.

The other man, Gregory, scoffs. "Just giving us false hope that we'll get out of here someday. Prob'ly planning to mass murder us all at the same time. Then, they'll take our corpses and throw us in some river so we'll never be found again. Our company and families will never know what happened to us." He pauses, waiting to see if any of his friends have anything to add. None of them do, so he continues. "Or they'll put us somewhere close to our camp, so they'll find our bodies, and lure the rest of our troop out so they can slaughter every last one of them."