It is cold and we are miserable. Yesterday, the suppliers got firewood before we created the pact. The warmth made everything much calmer and diplomatic to say the least. No one yelled and there was hardly any arguing. It can only be assumed by deductible reasoning, that all of us are not mad at each other, just very cold and miserable. I was thinking about this notion all day and I ended up coming to another piece of reason.

  "Yuri," I eventually asked him, "Can we talk?"

  He nodded and took us aside. I could see that he was probably more stressed than the rest of us. He had large bags under his eyes and he moved frantically, like he had gotten no sleep for the past week. I was very concerned just looking at him, and I temporarily forgot what I needed to tell him.

  "Sit down somewhere. You look horrible," I ordered. He did as I said.

  I began informing him of what I was concerned about for him, "You look really bad; I'm being honest. You have bags under your eyes and you are quite fidgety. Have you gotten any sleep this past week? Tonight you really need to. It is really bad."

  "Thank you for being concerned about me, Felix, but your concerns are misplaced. I'm just worried," he tried shrugging it off.

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  I shook my head, "No, Yuri. You don't understand. You need sleep. You are much too worried and you are putting your health on the line. It is simply awful and I won't let it happen to you at this time. If you care about the boys so much that you are so worried, get some sleep. You are hardly any use if you don't. It makes everything worse, trust me on that one."

  "Alright," Yuri nodded. He finally seemed to accept my advice for once. I was astonished.

  I decided that it was then I should bring it up, "Do you know what would be best for us to do? I think we should head south, back to the village until summer hits. They like us so much anyway. Louis has already died, and there is nothing we can do if another one dies. If we were in the village, we could help it more easily. At the very least, we could start heading to the south base."

  "We are already so far ahead. We'll make it to the base soon," he informed me.

  I sighed, "Will we? Because last time you said that, it wasn't true. I love this unit and I love this job, yet I cannot stand to spend another second in this cold. Besides, our radio is down. What will we see when we get to the base. Our hope might be lost. They might have already abandoned us."

  "You could never know that for sure," Yuri told me.

  I smiled, "Could I or have I seen it happen to people before? The French don't care much about two of their boys lost. One of which is permanent."

  "I think about it, alright?" Yuri muttered. I told him to get some sleep and our conversation ended there. I had to talk to Lawrence and Angelo to get what Yuri said off my mind. If we do not head south, almost all of us will die. That is a fact.