You wake up, so you look around and see that it's still dark out. You reach up to the dirty black watch that you have secured to the bottom of the bunk above you and hit the button to illuminate your watch. As it shines its dim green light down onto you you see it's only 02:40, it's only about 2 hours till wake-up you think to yourself. I should try to go back to sleep, as I need as much sleep as I can get, as it's going to be my squad's turn to go on a 3-day patrol. As you lay there you can hear the faint sound of the sentries in their posts. You can barely hear two of them talking to each other, but are unable to make out what they are saying.
This piques your interest, as the sentries are supposed to keep quiet unless they see something, to not draw any hostile attention. So you lift your blanket and step out of your rack onto the floor below. You can feel the chilliness of the floor on your bare feet. As you begin to walk towards the barracks door, you hear someone whisper to you, asking where it is you are going? You whisper back, I'm going to the latrine. They whisper back, very well, carry on. As you get closer to the front of the building you can see them being slightly illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the window behind them, as they sit in a chair in the corner. You can see that it's a member of the other squad that you are sharing the building with. As you press to open the latrine door, you can see the room is illuminated by the moonlight coming in through the vent above the toilet.
You move over to the vent to hear the sentries talking. You can hear them talking about two squads getting hit a couple of nights back, in their camp in sector 13, and that 9 of them are missing and 3 are dead. You begin to wonder why you hadn't heard anything about it when you hear one of them say that the camp was as if they were caught by surprise and didn't get to put up much of a fight. Their mounts were also missing. This doesn't sound like the normal enemy forces that you have been fighting since hostilities broke out last summer. You begin to wonder if any other squads have been hit, or if those are the only ones as you back away from the vent and begin to leave. As you go back to your rack you wonder if your patrol will get hit.