"That's what I want to know," the artificer says innocently. "See, we've all been marching for days trying to catch up with the opposition, and right now everyone here is half-starved and disturbingly close to an enemy force. And there are two options I can see here: You keep doing what you're doing now, and if they come back everyone's still starved and some of them are lying on the ground unconscious. Or you start feeding everyone, which I guarantee will make you the most popular person around."