O'Brien Journal

5th January 356 AO
Handled 96 wounded and dead today. Many of them were simply frozen to death their wounds not being serious enough to kill on their own. I have informed the soldiers in as clear a manner as I know how that a frozen body is a dead body, though some of them have seemed dissatisfied when it is someone they know. The knowledge of anatomy and the workings of the human body are lost on the vast majority of my fellows.

... The rules for serving soldiers in order of rank is a poorly considered one. I am often faced with a wounded Captain that will soon meet the Abyss, if one can truly be said to have actually met nothingness, when a lowly Corporal or Private stands a good chance of survival if his wounds are tended to. I've worked it out that I assign one of the orderlies to all the men that will soon meet death so that I can fulfill the prescription of the rules without ignoring good sense.

40 minutes ago a nearly dead soldier was brought in, covered in blood and dirt with fingers of ice already forming on the extremities. As I began to treat the patient I was surprised to discover it was actually a heretic girl of no more the 16 or 17 that stole the clothes of a dead solider likely in an attempt to escape. She had suffered several wounds, some of which were days old. After 2 grueling hours of surgery she woke up to find that I had taken 3 of her fingers on her hand that had succumbed to the cold. I prevented her from screaming, it surely would have given her away. She asked after her child that she was trying to carry away from the mayhem. I had not the heart to tell her the child's certain fate.

I sit here now at my desk considering what I shall do. She stands no chance in the cold considering her injuries and that does not regard the soldiers she is surrounded by. If I surrender her to the guard she'll be thrown in the most squalid of prisons, where she will also surely die. I have little desire to risk myself on her behalf, but I feel a strange desire to see her well and united with those she loves. I leave myself to consider the choice before me until morning, occasionally time provides me an answer my intellect is incapable of reaching.