Fred describes the hospital as a long room with many beds. When someone is close to death they surround him with a screen. The major tells him he is to travel to Milan the next day if he feels up to moving to a nicer hospital with better x-ray facilities. Rinaldi comes by the night before he is to leave, and tells him he should go to an American hospital because the U.S. has finally declared war on Germany. Fred speculates that the United States will declare war on Austria, Bulgaria, Turkey, and Japan as he gets drunk. Rinaldi tells him that they are getting drunk to celebrate the American entrance into the war. This celebration is slightly cynical: more men will die and the tide of war may not change. Rinaldi tells him that Catherine will be in Milan. They go to sleep.
"The next day in the morning we left for Milan and arrived forty eight hours later. It was a bad trip. We were sidetracked for a long time this side of Mestre and children came and peeked in. I got a little boy to go for a bottle of cognac but he came back and said he could only get grappa."Chapter 12, pg. 77
He gets drunk and is sick on the floor of the train. He loses his conceptual understanding of time. Later on, a soldier gives Fred water and an orange to eat. The train continues for a long time.
