Today, we decided to stay at our camp so as to not exhaust ourselves. We cannot have another man die if we are to survive. We settled down more than we did the day prior. The group of hunters reported that they couldn't find many animals good for the whole group, so we will surely have to move tomorrow. However, they did find just enough to suit all of us for a single day. I was worried that they wouldn't find nearly as much food as they used to because Kimi is no longer with us. He was the best of hunters. They informed me that they were fine and did not need any other man's help with hunting. There is nothing to hunt.

  I overheard Mosao talking to Yuri about the supplies they had managed to get. It was only a little bit of firewood, but it would suit us all for the day. I helped them place it on the fire we already had started. Some of the boys came over and began warming up. One of them looked like they had frostbite, so I immediately checked. It was Henry the American. When I was checking out his hands, I inquired whether it was sicker or more sick. What the guy said deeply confuses me.

  "Depends on who you're tryin' to be, sir," he told me. I asked him to elaborate. He then said something along the lines of if I was trying to be Danny, say more sick and if I was trying to be a "Yankee", say sicker. He then went on a small tangent on how he never thought the name Yankee would include him, and he'd rather trust a Yankee more than a Brit. After this, he called me "sir" about three times. I was very overwhelmed.

  This was also the first time that I have ever heard Henry talk more than a sentence. His accent was surely the weirdest accent I've ever heard. I can't even begin to describe it. Is this how people feel with my French accent? I hope not. I didn't want to inquire any further, but I had to say one thing to him. I asked him not to call me sir. This is no training camp, after all. Also, despite the young guy's age, I was probably younger.

  "No can do, sir. 'less you'd rather have me call you... what is it?... monsieur?" was all he said. I told him that yes, it was the right word; but no, he shouldn't call me that. I didn't ask him to elaborate and told him that he was frostbite free.

  I went to Lawrence shortly after and informed him of the predicament. He laughed louder than I'd ever heard any man laugh before. There are quite a few times a day that I am glad that I am no longer near the trenches any longer. This was one of those times.

  "Henry's what we like to call a Reb," Lawrence explained, composing himself, "He's a Southerner, which is what that means. He's a nice one, for sure. I'm shocked you haven't heard the term Yankee before. In the Civil War that we had back at home in the 60s, the Southerners were Rebs and the Northerners were Yankees. We still call each other that. The North and South don't get along well. I'm a Northerner from Chicago. I like the South, though. If you ever need any manual labour done, call a Southerner. They are smarter than they sound, or how they are made out as. Nowadays, all Americans are called Yankees. We were called that when we fought the British a while back."

  Lawrence went on another one of his long rants about it, to which I wasn't paying attention. Americans are very weird. However, I just had to ask him why he called me sir and what he had said. It took Lawrence much longer to compose himself the second time he broke down than the first.

  "He called you "monsieur"? That's hilarious. At least he got it right. Anyway, that's just a Southern thing. They'll call everyone ma'am and sir to the day they die. It's their way of showing respect," Lawrence said.

  I tried to track down Angelo after this. I needed to clear my head of whatever I had just uncovered. I did not find him anywhere around camp. Not in the supplies, not around the campfire, not in any of the tents. I scrambled around checking again and again. Had we lost him? Where was he? He shouldn't be that far from the fire. As I was just about to panic, I ran into Georges, Angelo's friend. I inquired in him the location of Angelo, my silent frenzy not showing. I needed to compose myself, so I took the moment to. He asked me why I needed him and I said I needed to question him. He did not question me any further and instead told me that he was with Roy, collecting game. I did not know that Angelo had ever talked to Roy before, but one learns something new everyday.

  That led me to the small patch of ground sanctioned off for hunting, It is a wild place out there. I carried a pocket knife to make myself feel better about being there. I decided if I could fight a war, I could avoid any dangerous animals that might be out there. I was a fighter, not a hunter.

  Soon, I found Roy and Angelo hunched over a log, looking at a weird looking deer. It was a big thing, probably easily feeding all of us for a day or two. They had not seen me, so I squatted down, avoiding the deer's gaze. Rou guided Angelo's arms with his own, helping him aim. I thought this weird. Roy was no hunter, but amazing with the rifle. What were they doing out in the woods with a rifle if they were not hunting? A few seconds later, the gun's trigger was pulled and the deer was shot through the eye. They raced over there as the deer fell and I stood.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Now considering my choices, I made a rather dumb decision. I called to Roy and Angelo that it was a rather good shot. Roy turned with his knife pointed and Angelo with the rifle, aimed right toward me. My hands shot up and I more than quickly identified myself. Roy cursed, dropping the knife. Angelo thought before reacting to Roy's gesture and gently set the rifle in the snow.

  "What on God's green earth are you doing here?" Roy yelled into the snowy surroundings.

  "Taking a walk," I told them sarcastically.

  They then made me help them carry the carcass back to camp for causing them such a fright. We loaded it up on Roy and I's backs. It was quite a bit of weight, so we didn't let Angelo touch it. Especially when it was spilling out blood. We didn't want him to tear a muscle, even if he was strong. He protested this, but we didn't give in. Halfway back to camp, I let out a loud cough, stumbling with the carcass.

  After Roy steadied it, he told me, "Doctor better not be catching no lung disease. The doctor can't die."

  I told him I wasn't a doctor and he responded with, "Sure you are! Never a finer doctor around! We can't have you sick. My lungs are strong, but we aren't so sure about you, Felix."

  He was starting to sound like Henry or Lawrence when he was tired, so I didn't inquire further. Once we got to the camp, Krishna and Lucas took the game, surprised. They repeated what the hunters had said. They told Yuri that they couldn't find anything and we clearly weren't hunters. Soon, the hunters were all interrogating Roy as to where he found the deer. The ones who manage our supplies took the deer and prepped it for cooking, more specifically skinning it of its fur. I saw in the corner of my eye that Angelo was salvaging what fur the deer had. He took it no matter how stripped it was and gathered it into his arms after cleaning off the blood in the snow. They then began to cook it.

  I had never anticipated a meal so very badly. We had never starved in this mission thus far, always having a good meal from some animal. There was a cook on our journey with us, but that was not all he did. Georges wants to help in every area he can, so he also takes to scouting out where we can move with Roy, Igor, Antonio, and Henry. Georges seems to have the best of cooking. We ate well this precious night.

  Ammon offered a piece of his food to the fire. It seemed to remind everyone of our lost brother. in the end, this was what Kimi wanted. He didn't want to go back home to God knows what. He wanted to stay with this unit for the rest of his life and his wish was granted. Angelo secluded himself from the rest of us that night. Him and Kimi seemed to be close at one time. Perhaps I should follow Angelo around and try to get to know my men as well as him. Maybe they would trust me more.

  When our bodies told us to take shelter and sleep, we retreated to the tents. There I found Angelo reading a non-risky part of my diary, so I didn't mind. As I grabbed my pen to begin writing, he handed me the diary and laid beside me.

  "Why did you come to the woods?" he asked me. I told him I was looking for him to ask a question. When he asked what it was, I told him I had forgotten.

  "Liar. What were you going to ask me?" Angelo questioned once more. I told him It truly forgot, but he did not let it go and pried something out of me. I asked him what he wanted to be when he was an adult. He seemed almost as shocked by this question as I was. I did not expect to say anything of the sort. He told me that he didn't know what he wanted to do and he figured that he'd be the first to die, so he shouldn't worry about it. I told him that he shouldn't think like that and that he does need to start thinking about his future career.

  He then asked me what I wanted to be. I thought for a moment and said that I was not completely sure. I am not. I never had thought about it before. I suppose I thought that I didn't need to. I then said with the amount of times that they are making me be the doctor, I should be one. I would have the experience for it.

  "You are the doctor, Felix," he told me, "You are the best one out of us. You're pretty good at it too. I mean, a few weeks ago you saved Antonio with your skill. We need you."

  I thanked him for the kind words, but I didn't accept them. He told me that he figured and that I should think over what he said occasionally. Angelo is starting to sound like Albert. After this, I couldn't help but ask another question that had been on my mind since I found him. I questioned why him and Roy were in the woods. They surely couldn't have known that there would be a big deer in the depths of the woods.

  Angelo smiled, seemingly remembering an encounter, "Roy was trying to teach me how to shoot."

  I then inquired whether or not he had understood what Roy was saying. He frowned and slumped down with his blanket over top of him. I pulled it back and looked at his face, taking it as a negative response. He shook his head and I told him I would teach him how to shoot sometime. I pulled his cover back on him fully and grabbed my pen. He rolled over and went to sleep. Today has been much better than yesterday. However, the cold still bites us and I feel now that I have to look more keenly for frostbite. I can't have any of us die of something so avoidable.