After the pitched battle with the gang, when they returned to the "Shelter" to rest, Andrei had plenty of time to reflect on what had happened. What surprised him most was that he hadn't once considered the idea of killing. Concerned about his men and leading the squad, he had completely forgotten about himself, and he liked it that way. Leaving aside the incident with the prisoners, Andrei hadn't once considered the fate of the bandits.
Had he become hardened? No, hardly. And the incident with the prisoners proved it. But the operation opened his eyes to something obvious to most, something he had stubbornly refused to notice before: his men were more valuable to him than anyone else, and their lives were all he truly cared about during battle.
The wound under the bandage on his shoul
