Leadership [Short Story] ✅

Part 5

A/N

Enjoy ;)

It took us another month or so to finally break off the forays. Sergeant Jekyl's conjecture about the mafias heading all the way to Scotland turned out to be right, after sending out spies to various places, and finding that most of them are situated around Glasgow. We have found a number of suspicious movements going all over the place after gathering information, even here in Sheffield. However, we haven't bothered to strike them, because that will blow the whole operation off. Besides, who knows whether they, like us, have second plans? By the time our taskforce is coming to an end, autumn has already arrived; leaves shedding from trees, morning breezes, occasional rain drizzles – all that makes me fight the urge to remain in bed every morning.

But, again, this isn't a vacation. Even though there hasn't been any movement except for the one back in August where we caught a few of them try to make an upheaval, we still have our duties. There isn't that much, however. At some days, I would volunteer to help reconstruct the damaged buildings. And some of the troops would join me. That is how we get to stay for another month in Sheffield – not under Chauser's orders. In fact, I'd requested it. "But why, Lieutenant? You did not cause most of the damage in this city," Chauser had said the other day with a smile on his face. "You don't have to be responsible for everything."

"Have you watched The Avengers, sir?"

He'd understood my reference without having me to explain more, and let me stay. At first, it was just me. But somehow, when the troops found out that I was going to stay in Sheffield for another four weeks just to take part in reconstruction – despite my lack of experience – they'd asked Chauser whether they could stay as well. In the end, the whole military is still here, all willing to take part in society. At least we're making a good progress. Caden had pointed out once that this should be a new way of boosting, and I honestly couldn't agree more.

"You know what we should've done during training?" he says to me one cold October morning, turning a grinning face in my direction as he hoists a sack of cement from the trucks.

But Jordan Boyd, who's been handing out the sacks to us, catches Caden's words and replies for me; "Bomb the fort?"

"Precisely," he nods. "Then we all get to rebuild the whole thing and none of us will be stressed out! What d'you think, Squire?"

"I think you should reconsider your words," I state.

Jordan sniggers. "Get some humour, Colton!" says Caden. He addresses Jordan and says, "I don't think he'll see any humour unless it's Ranel Fleming tripping for him—"

"Oi!"

My retort causes them to guffaw, and I don't know whether the warmth forming on my cheeks is from exasperation or the mere mention of—

Never mind.

Still, there is no doubt that Caden knows. It isn't as if I'm being obvious. Am I, though? Everyone else is oblivious, but Caden Walsh, in some ways, just knows. I never admitted it to him. I never even gave hints. I'm quite good at masking emotions, yet it doesn't seem to work on him. Sometimes, when he sees Ranel and me exiting our room at the same time, he will have that awfully, ruddy, bloody pathetic smirk playing at the corners of his lips. The others simply assume that I'm still "trying to fix Private Ranel Fleming", seeing as I was always pushing him back in his early days as a private. "You need to stop favouring him, Colton. That big boy can take care of himself," Jordan had told me once.

I let the matter drop, because what do they know?

Ranel arrives not a while later, carrying a toolbox in one hand and a bundle of cloth in his other hand, which he holds up at chest level as if he is about to present the Queen of England with some sort of a precious diadem or something. I make a double-take after throwing a casual glance over the bundle of cloth; grey feathers are sticking out from some folds, and I swear the top of the cloth is gradually rising upwards and downwards, as if someone is breathing underneath it – or something.