Progression of a War

By now Ishmael and the others are homeless refugees.  They have no were to go and they are slowly starving to death.  This chapter is almost unbearable to read with the ways they have to steal, sacrifice, and flee just to survive.  To survive they steal ears of corn from a five year old and that says to me that they are very desperate at this point.  So as an alternative they also leave to go back and get their hidden money from Mattru Jong.  When they get their they find the bodies of two mutilated men and this makes me sick to my stomach that the rebels would do such horrors for no apparent reason.  Then the rebels discover Ishmael and the others when they are leaving with their money.  They then begin to recruit them and then the old man comes.  When he arrives things get worse because they torture him and interrogate him.  They proceed by taunting him and then threatening him with death. They shoot so close to his ear that he believes that he is dead and he cries out in agony and that to me is one of the worst things in this chapter.