Generals Die In Bed

In a two-page chapter, the narrator finds himself in a small village with Broadbent. They are billeted in a cottage. The old woman who lives there cares for the narrator’s bloodied feet.

For the first time, the narrator provides the date: April 1918. The Canadian soldiers listen to speeches by their officers and discover that they have been designated as “shock troops to break the German offensive” (118).

The troops are loaded into trucks and begin their long journey. The men grow increasingly hungry but are told they will get rations when they get to their destination. Conditions get steadily worse; they are tightly jammed into the trucks, and they are even forced to defecate through the slats of the truck since they never stop moving. As they talk amongst themselves, they consider the costs of the war, particularly in a battle like Passchendaele. They conclude someone must be growing rich on profits from bombs and guns.

After two days of travel without food or water, in increasing discomfort, they arrive at the city of Arras. The town is deserted because the citizens all left when the Germans began shelling the town.