Familiar

Chapter 6

AN: This chapter contains sensitive content - mainly violence and gruesome deaths. The scene might be disturbing, but please do remember that Harry is a soldier in this book and I wanted it to be realistic. 

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....

Harry...

"Got any jacks?" Jake asked.

"Nah, go fish. Queens?" Paul quipped.

"Go fish. Three's?"

"No. Any seven's?"

"Go fish. Jacks?"

"Man, you just asked me that." Paul exclaimed, sounding quite exasperated.

"Have I? Motherfucker I suck at this game." Jake groaned.

"After two rounds of you whining, you just realized that now?" I can't help but to snort as I peeked one eye open.

"What the? Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" Paul who was sorting out the mess of cards, turned to me, startled.

"D'you really expect a lad to get some sleep around here when you two're bickering like a couple of old ladies." I chuckled, dodging the pillow Jake chucked towards me as I stood up to stretch.

"So you've been laying there awake this whole time?" Paul eyed me disbelievingly, making me laugh.

"Drifting in and out." I shrugged. "So what's happening? Fellas still out?" I sat down, pressing on the serious matters at hand as my eyes took in the premises. The walls of our huge tent were rolled up, fastened to the roof, granting easier access to and from. Outside were fellow soldiers of different ranks engaged in different activities mundane enough for the norm but a rarity here in Middle East – playing football, having haircuts, napping and so on.

We weren't usually this frivolous. But we were forced to lay low for a few short days by our officials, giving way for the rifles to do a sweep of the area.

And having nothing to do than to wait, it was a direct order to treat this as a day off before any of us lost our minds to restlessness while the higher-ups tried to figure out what the enemy could be up to.

But if you looked much closer, it was apparent none of us seemed as taken with our activities as we would first appear to be – Harris looking quite lost in their football match, Eddie tossing and turning in his cot, Warren whose jaw was far too tensed for someone reading a book, and so on.

Jake sighed, "Colonel and a few of his men went out to meet with the Americans to share some intel. They've been gone for a few hours now, still ain't back yet."

I nodded. "How exactly 'few' are they?"

Jake turned to Paul, who shrugged then looked me in the eye "Lance Corporal Evan's section and another from the second rifle"

"Jesus Christ, that few?"

"Said they wanted to be inconspicuous."

I shook my head, frowning. "There ain't anything inconspicuous in this continent."

"What about the General?" I asked the two men sitting across from me on the pile of their forgotten card game.

"He j –"

Timely enough, Mark, one of the juniors came barreling in. He looked short of breath and worse for wear. "General's just arrived, he's on his way here."