That same day finally marked their arrival in the valley foreseen by Ortega and Coletta. Believing it to be relatively safe, they walked more or less to the centre. The steep terrain and thick vegetation made it a highly unlikely passage area, which thereby made it perfect.
That evening, as per usual, Ortega and the others did their food, water and ammunition stock count.
They found that the MREs – which post-raid had become exclusively prisoner food – were lasting much longer than anticipated, almost twice as long actually. The hostages were eating about half of what an average soldier would, undoubtedly because of their captivity, of course. Moreover, the little they were eating was still far better than what they’d eaten as prisoners until then.
“We’ve gained a few more days of food,” said Danforth as he put the rations back into the rucksacks.
“Yep” agreed Ortega.
“But we’ll need to hunt nevertheless, and the sooner we start the better off we’ll be”
“Gotcha”
“Eagle, organize some guard shifts, will you? do some hunting ones too while you’re at it. I want to have a little chat with Doc regarding the short ranged radios”
“Consider it done”
*
That night, before going to sleep, Chester confided to Barry that thanks to those combat rations, he was eating better than he had in years.
Barry, who was literally starving by then, kept how hungry he was to himself.
If on the one side, the prisoners felt better than ever, then on the other, the Baker team really needed nourishing. It was their duty however, and they didn’t expect it to be otherwise
In any case, seeing a hostage, who was in such a bad condition express such happiness, well, that was priceless for Barry.
“I am happy for you, buddy” Barry replied.
For those four former US prisoners, it was their first night as free men in a long, long time.