The Land

The soldier guard, who was accompanying the group, guided the posses of prisoners passed the armies they had come up to and moved them along as quickly as possible as soldiers here and there in the regiments sneakily pushed and shoved the passing captives.

The nearer the guard got to where he must have been heading the more impatient he grew and began to shout once more for his burden lot to move quicker and faster. The soldier it seemed was in no mood to be babysitting the sorry looking group and wished to be elsewhere. As quickly, as he began to start shouting for Jacob and company to hurry, he bellowed for them to stop and drop. With his say, each man and woman hastily plunged to the ground and sat without mention. Passing the group were two other soldiers carrying a large box between each other and dressed differently to the rest of the surrounding army. Jacobs group guard quickly shouted at the two men to come over and that they did, leading Jacob to believe they were lower in rank to be so eager to step to the guard command. The two men quickly scuttled over, placed down the wooden box and stood with their hands aside of themselves.

‘Watch tis lot yal two’ coarsely said the soldier to the men

‘Sir!’ shouted the two soldiers together in an agreeing response.

‘I’ll be back in a bit, I’m off for da captain, where may ee be bout ere?’

‘Over in that there tent sir!’ said one of the men while pointing to a small red marquee not a few yards away

‘Alwright, I shalt be long, if any of’em move, zap’em’ the guard said as he handed one of the men his stunner rod, as it seemed neither of them had one on their person.

As the guard scurried off to do his bidding, the two men separated to stand guard on either side of the group and said not a word. They stood with their chins high and their hands still firmly at their sides, except one who held the stunner rod over his right breast.

Again, Jacob felt he was not in a position to talk and so sat on the ground looking at everything about him. There was not too much new to see. The Magno-chines were still fluttering about in the air, a few looked slightly different with mechanic style arms aside of the vehicle carrying larger boxes a man could not carry and the army of men who stood in formation not far away were still and without activity. Jacob tired to see where the guard had gone but his eyes followed him only to the entrance of the red and yellow army tent to which he disappeared. In seemed quite busy inside but outside of it stood only one guard, dressed in the same manner as the guard Jacob was trying to observe. The battalion that stood by Jacob were not the knight regiments he would have wished to observed but were just the soldiers that were all dressed identical to the ones he had already seen. The only new thing Jacob could see in the enclosed area he now sat were the two soldiers who stood either of his imprisoned group. Unli ke all the other armed forces around, they did not have the same reflective armour; in fact, they bore little armour except the helmet on their heads and the gorget around their necks. They wore very baggy beige striped camouflaged jackets and trousers with knee high brownie cream boots. Over their coats, they bared two large crossed white straps around their chest with small pouches attached.