If I chop down a tree in the forest and no one is around, does anybody else hear it? In this case, I hope not.

I’ve done it! The first tree has been chopped. It lies in eight pieces, each five meters long and barked. I cannot overstate both my excitement and exhaustion. Yesterday I found two low-laying branch forks in two separate trees, which happened to be the same height, and they are perfect for hanging my logs above and away from the damp forest floor. The pieces I already have will make the lower layers of the walls, whenever it comes time to build them. I’ll need a foundation first. I spent an unreasonable amount of time gathering half a dozen flat stones for the job; however, I’ll need at least ten times that number for even a single layer of them.

The last news I heard before leaving Hood River was grim. The Germans had pushed to Rochester, cutting the northeast off from the capital supply chains, except by the lakes. King George V sits close by in Ottawa, sending men and supplies to the north. Whether the whiff of self-preservation had turned to a stench is beyond my layman’s mind, but for all purposes the two countries have become one. Is it unreasonable to assume Canada will be next in line, and not far into the future? No. Ashcroft withstanding, the German high command are still warmongers and will take Canada, even if they hold no significance to their current plan. Taking me is, after all, but a stepping stone to world domination, is it not? Only, they don’t know their every move brings us closer to there being no world left to dominate. Such is the fallacy of war, in general, and this war in specific.

Washington still stands, Washington state and DC, both. Ashcroft’s air advantage is single target for the time being. Just three harpies yet exist, not including sweet Alice, and they seem to attack in unison, with the aeroplanes always supporting them. There is one frontline, after all.

If the Canadian-American forces have learned their true objective they haven’t said. There would be no use in telling them, of course, beyond having the comfort of knowing Wilson and George are fighting fully informed. As it stands they have to believe they face the devil himself in a battle just short of certain doom. If only they knew the enemy’s power would soon wain, just so long as they could delay him long enough, then they might just find the strength to do it. The first man in a charge is often the one with the strongest principles. No amount of fear will send a man into a fort, and no threat from behind will send him in quicker than that of a hypocrite’s death.

I’ve read through Marcel’s entries. There’s nothing more to say. You’ve read them. You know. I’ll come to terms with it.

I have no way to tell how much time remains for me. The work is tiring, and I give it all I have, but a man has his limits. My hand aches against my pen. There’s a satchel of inkwells and spare pens in Feltheart’s saddlebag, brought all the way from Salinas. Will it be enough? I won’t bother preserving them, either way, though the mind wanders. Strange as it is to say, the diary’s fresh pages run thin. Which will run out first, the ink or the paper? Perhaps, I think, it will be me.