It was cold and we were running out of food. Conor was losing blood fast and I was about ready to leave him in the snow. It’s been 14 days since we were separated from the rest of the army. When I saw them they were about ready to leave, that's when I yelled for General Alfredo. Everyone turned to see 2 soldiers wounded and bleeding soon taken to medical care and treated. Several days later Conor died from Hypothermia.

As for me, I was punished, picking up horse poop for 40 days. The general soon called for a meeting that would decide if I would be killed or if I would be starved to death. They sent me back to my tent and I wasn’t given food for exactly 6 days straight. I grew very weak and illness became more expected of me. A few days later the general saw that I was not getting any better nor worse and soon made a decision not to kill me nor starve me to death but instead had me eat whatever was left.

It was the year 1777 on a cold snowy night and my brother and I were attacked at a march and separated from our General. We were forced to go into the woods and hide. It was very difficult for us to survive because we didn’t know what to do without any commander telling us what to do. Conor was surprisingly shot in the lower thigh and I was shot in the muscle of the arm. I was able to remove my bullet but for Conor, his bullet wasn’t there I was confused so I did my examination on his thigh and it was like it just disappeared. I ended up ripping part of his and my pants to cover up the wounds.

Soon we had to settle down because it was getting dark and we settled near a river and woods, so it was a pretty great place to recover. In the morning when Conor was awake he said “ Where are we?”, and I asked, “do you not remember what had happened?” He responds with “no I don’t remember.” So I told him, “we were attacked and separated from the rest of the army” and soon I told him “we both were shot and that I was able to remove my bullet but yours wasn’t there” and he looked at his leg and I tried to make him forget about it but he was scared and worried about what could’ve happened if they were ever seen out here alone, “who could attack us next?” he said to himself. 

Soon I realized that he was trying to have a look at his wound but remembered that he faints or screams like bloody hell if he’s looking at something nauseous so I decided to comfort him. I told him “everything is going to be alright you’ll see.” He shook his head and we were just about ready to leave when we heard voices, not our language but Latin language, then we hid in the water ( which was freezing a lot) first me then Conor. We saw them wearing leather boots and had these coats that looked so warm and had sharp swords, some had muskets, others just had these weird objects they called hatches. Conor nudged me and when I looked his way I saw that they had hounds with them and Conor wasn’t gonna try and get caught so he went underwater and swam a little further away from where we were original. 

Soon I followed him and we thought that they saw us just as we were about to get up. We heard yelling. So I told Conor “We should try hiding up in the trees but then he told me “Did you forget that a bloody bullet went in me?” So I had to think rapidly and decided to cover him in some snow. He told me “If I die, leave me behind because I don’t want you to die either.”  I told him “neither of us is going to die, you just have to have hope ok!” He smiled and replied “ok.”

I decided to go up the tree either way and once I was up the tree I called for Conor one last time before the Latin people came. Conor was almost caught by one of the hounds but then the strangest thing happened the hound decided to move along. I did not understand why, but what Conor told me was so weird he told me “the dog wasn’t trying to harm us he was trying to let the men know which trees to cut and which were not good to cut” and when I asked him, “ How do you know?” He responded with “The dog was in my face and I thought it was going to attack me but started to lick my face and I was scared!”, Soon I said, “So that was just for nothing then?”

Conor replied with “Yep.” Conor and I started to laugh and so then we tried to find our way out but we were lost, but Conor noticed prints in the snow. They were dog prints and we knew we had to follow them if we ever wanted to get out of there. When we followed them they took us to a village with what seemed like a maze full of huts with little decorations on the outside of the huts.  Conor and I seemed to be walking towards the village and we saw that there was more than just one hound out in the snow earlier that day. 

There were what seemed to be a million hounds eating Deer, Hart, and Wild Boar. Some of the Latin people (women) saw us and ran in terror. While the men got ready to let the hounds go. One of them came towards Conor and jumped on him and was starting to lick him. Conor soon knew that that was the dog that saw him in the snow. The Latin who soon realized that their hounds would never lick another if they never saw them welcomed us.

They asked for forgiveness though Conor nor I spoke Spanish we just shook our heads up and down and they cheered. They invited us to join in their feast and stay with them for a bit. Conor and I looked around and wanted to ask but were afraid and the elder chief came to me and Conor and said “ it's ok if you don’t understand Spanish if you want I could translate for you and you could stay in my hut.” I thanked the man and he walked off. Conor and I walked after him to ask “where was his hut?”, he showed us the way.

Conor and I were putting stuff on the ground when the elder came in and asked us if we were alright and Conor, halfway asleep didn’t seem too well, but I answered that we were alright. Then the elder turned away and when night time came along I was sitting up (on these weird-looking beds) not able to fall asleep. I stared at Conor worried that maybe just maybe he was right about one of us dying, but I wasn’t just about to give up hope just like that. I waited till morning to let the elder (who I found out was the chief) know that we were going to be heading on our way and that we appreciated everything they did for us. The chief elder told me that he’ll lend me 2 horses, 1 for Conor and 1 for me, but I told him “ I'll only need 1 for I'll walk while my brother is on the horse” he then took me to his stable where he had several big and tuff horses (35 horses). 

I wanted to pay him in return for everything that they have done for us, but he said “keep it you could use it for the markets up ahead” and I thought “why would there be a market in the cold snowy woods?” Around 6:30 Connor was heard yelling in pain and as soon as I got there I saw that he was bleeding once again from his wound (even his ripped pants were dripping out some blood that they couldn’t suck up). Some of the villagers came in and surrounded him. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but it did sound painful. The only thing I did see was that they pulled something out of his thigh “was it the bullet, no that can’t be it wasn’t there yesterday?” I thought to myself. 

As they walked away I saw him, he was sweating a lot, there was a new bandage on his leg, and when I asked him, “How do you feel?” He responded with “I think I'm gonna rest for a bit more” (but I knew we had to go, but then again he just got a bullet removed from his leg) so I shook my head and said “that’s alright I’ll let you rest for 2 more hours, but then we'll have to go” and he said “ok.” An hour and 30 minutes went by and I went to wake up Conor, but when I got there he was still in bed, but something was different, it was the bandage was brown now instead of white. So I thought that they must’ve switched the bandage to something more durable, something tolerable for the long, long journey so when I went to wake him up the chief elder came in and told me “don’t wake him, let him rest in fact why don’t you stay another day and tomorrow when he’s better and more ready you guys could go on?” So I told him “ I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but we have to go.” 

The chief told me, “Please I ask you to stay just one more day.” So I just responded with “I guess we could stay for another day.” As I removed my bag and placed it on the ground Conor was awakening he murmured: “Henry come quickly please!” As I ran towards him I asked: “What is it Conor ?” He replies, “Are we leaving soon?”