March 17, 1896
Qift, Dominion
We were dispatched nearly the day after I wrote last. Orders came down from Field Marshal Lajoie that we were to proceed under the cover of night to the small village of Qift on the coast. Once there we were to infiltrate it and gather intelligence on the nearby coastal batteries. Apparently the idea was to get the information back to General Snow via courier and then await further orders. Likely being for us to destroy the batteries and allow for more seaborne landings at the village to help Snow and Lajoie get their forces connected along the coastal lines. That was the plan at least.
Unfortunately fate had a different story for us. We made it to Qift no problem, unfortunately the village had been raised by the enemy and the guns moved. No sign of where they went because a couple sandstorms arrived from the interior forcing us to shelter in the smoldering ruins for six days. Never knew sand could get into certain places, but it did. I won’t elaborate on that though.
Ollie and Alistaire continue to bond. They are constantly laughing up a storm when it’s safe to do so. Ollie seems to have taken my brother under my wing, I don’t think he could have a better person to look out for him in battle. We sleep in pairs now, those two requested that they be paired up so I thought might as well. Lucien is my tent buddy, he’s pretty relaxed most of the time and handles combat well enough.
Lawrence sent a recon group to meet up with us, they never arrived. Not sure how to get word to him from here so we’ll be making our way to our secondary position in a few days to see if we can pick up the trail of the big coastal guns. Those could be repurposed into intermediate artillery and that would be devastating for our advancing forces.