The Wars

Robert catches a train and boards a ship to France. Finding his way back to the Brigade Headquarters is difficult. He is separated from his kit bag due to a “foul-up on the part of one of the Sergeants” (149). He travels to Rouen and onward without it, arriving in Magdalene Wood, “still twelve miles from his destination” (150). He has to walk to Bailleul to get a room at a hotel and is assured his kit bag will be sent along to him. The countryside is peaceful, and he thinks that “there cannot be a war” (150). The landscape is empty and Robert wonders where the people have gone. Without his bag, he does not have his change of clothes or his pistol. He has travelled over 200 miles when his journey “should have been about a quarter of that” (151). He collapses into a deep sleep at the hotel.

The sounds of the hotel filter up to him, but he does not feel clean enough to venture down and join the women. He hears the guns in the distance and slips “his hand across his stomach and down between his legs” (152). He undresses and looks at himself in the mirror: “he seemed like a fugitive” (152). He feels “appallingly alone” (152) as he drinks brandy and grips his penis, his mind swept up in visions of “oblivion” (152).

Robert wakes the next day. An old woman brings him tea, and he tries to shave. He feels the fleas in his hair. Robert is “looking forward to his bath” (153) and decides to have a good meal that evening. Robert explores the town, which is busy with “transport of every kind” (153). He explores the road to Desolé and then the hospital itself, which is run by “cluster of attending nuns” (154). The baths are at Desolé and he prepares himself; the baths are occupied by soldiers, mental patients, and attendants. Robert spends “almost an hour” (155) languishing in a tub. As he exits, a patient begins “to scream and yell obscenities at the attendant who was trying to maneuver him into a tub” (155). Robert watches for a moment and leaves, the sound increasing behind him. More patients join in the commotion. He steps into the changing room and notices—too late—that the light has been extinguished. Robert hears breathing and knows that he is not alone in the cramped darkness. The men in the darkness attack Robert. They rape him. When they are done, they leave. By their voices, Robert can tell that they are “his fellow soldiers. Maybe even his brother officers” (157).

Robert tears apart his hotel room. He desperately wants his gun. A knock at the door brings him his kit bag. Robert opens the door to see Poole. Robert asks him to stay for a moment in the “shambles of a room” (159). Poole is going on leave. Bonnycastle is dead. Robert wants to embrace Poole, but he knows he cannot. Poole leaves and Robert opens his bag. Inside is a picture of Rowena. He burns it; “this was not an act of anger—but an act of charity” (160).

Robert joins the ranks as they prepare for “the most determined push the British had made on the salient” (160). He rides in an ammunition convoy with 35 mules and 100 horses in the rear. Robert gets closer and closer to St. Eloi and feels “as if he had come home” (161). As he is riding along, he notices a rabbit beside the road. A moment later, “something exploded” (161). Bombs fall all around him. The air is “alive with planes” (161). Chaos surrounds Robert: men, horses, and mules run in every direction. The planes pass overhead again and then are gone. Robert gets on his horse and a “circle of survivors” (162) gather. They have seven mules, 15 horses, and 23 out of 60 men remaining. Juliet’s candle juts out of Robert’s kit bag; “it had been set alight” (162). Robert blows it out and helps the survivors.

Robert rides with the supply wagons for the next six days. He has not been to the trenches but hears reports of his side making progress. The ragged line at the front has meant hundreds of casualties each day. One night, while riding a horse along a stretch of road, Robert comes to a halt. The horse refuses to proceed. Robert inspects the ground in front and finds a dead body. It is Clifford Purchas.

Seven days after returning to the front, Robert has a “fresh supply of horses and mules (some thirty of each)” (163) when the stables are caught in a shelling barrage. Robert visits Captain Leather and asks to take the animals to safety. The Captain refuses and Robert stays in the stables with Devlin, both crouched in the stalls. As the shelling comes closer, Robert decides to “break ranks and save these animals” (164). As they release the animals, Captain Leather sees them through his window. He rushes outside and shouts at Devlin, calling for the military police. When none arrive, Leather takes out his pistol and shoots Devlin. Robert sees the crowd of mules and horses remaining in the yard and realizes what has happened. Shells begin to fall even closer. Robert runs for the gates as “everything was on fire” (165). A shell falls on the barns. Three shells fall on the yard just as Leather reaches Robert. The yard is a smoldering crater; the remaining horses and mules are either dead or dying. Robert takes out his pistol, intending to put the dying animals out of their misery and is overcome with a righteous fury. He sees Captain Leather struggle to his feet and shoots him “between the eyes” (165). Then he kills the dying animals, removes his lapels, and exits the battlefield.

Mr. and Mrs. Ross receive the news that Robert is missing in action. Mrs. Ross wanders the house in a nightgown and drinks heavily. A “strange and terrible silence” (166) descends over the family. Mrs. Ross, having finished her bottle, asks for help. Mr. Ross goes to sit beside her at the foot of the stairs. Mrs. Ross has gone blind. He holds her, rocking her back and forth until she falls asleep and the sun sets. This is 16 June.

The Germans assault Bailleul and mean to raze it “to the ground” (168). The attack is savage and “men, machines and houses went up like torches. It became a holocaust” (168). This is also 16 June.

The scene returns to the opening of the novel. Robert sits on his haunches near a railroad track and watches a horse and dog, dressed in a tattered military uniform. He has a pistol in his hand and has “wandered now for over a week” (13). Surrounded by burning wreckage, he appears to be the sole survivor of a train crash. Robert approaches the horse and checks the saddle, noting the two animals’ familiarity with one another. He rides the horse along the track towards Magdalene Wood, and when the horse whinnies, he stops and opens the stalled carts of the train, unleashing the trapped horses. They ride off together under a red moon.

At this point, the mythology becomes “muddled” (170). The witnesses in Robert’s court martial offer wild stories. The likeliest is that Robert and his herd of horses wake a group of soldiers. Robert shoots a private. The officer—Major Mickle—sends word that “an officer of the C.F.A. had shot and killed one of his men and had then made off with a great many horses in the direction of Magdalene Wood” (170). Mickle is eventually told to pursue Robert and he does so with 40 men. They find Robert in an abandoned barn; the horses have been stabled. Robert waits for Mickle, his automatic pistol drawn. There is “no doubt whatsoever” (171) that Robert did not want the horses to go back to the war.

Robert refuses to come out when Mickle demands and takes a potshot at the Major but misses. He fires again and insists that “we shall not be taken” (172). The ‘we’ suggests to Mickle that Robert has a human accomplice, rather than the horses to whom Robert is referring. Mickle orders his men to set fire to the barn. Mickle believes this is a ploy. Robert cannot open the barn doors in time. The horses panic. Mickle sends a man to open the door. Robert is seen riding the black mare, trying to save the other horses. The barn collapses on the horses and Robert and the mare jump out through the flames. The men catch Robert and put out the flames on his back. Just before he slips into unconsciousness, he mutters, “The dog. The dog” (172), but the dog is never found.

A transcript from Marian Turner details how “Robert Ross was brought to us the 18th of June, 1916” (173). He is horribly burned, and a “dreadful, dreadful silence” (174) surrounds him. He is guarded at all hours. Marian Turner recalls the one conversation she has with Robert. She admits that she “wanted to help him die” (174) and hoards morphine for him. She sends away the guard and makes her offer. Robert replies “not yet” (175).

It is two months before Robert can be moved. He is tried in his absence and is allowed to go to St. Aubyn’s for convalescent treatment. This is only offered as “there was virtually no hope that he would ever walk or be capable of judgement again” (175). Barbara visits him only once. Juliet rarely leaves his side. Robert dies in 1922, nearly 26-years-old. Mr. Ross is the only family member who attends Robert’s funeral. Juliet writes on his gravestone: “Earth and Air and Fire and Water” (176).