Chapter 20 Summary

Chapter 20, opens with Bertrand rudely awakening the narrator at 2 a.m. to assume guard duty. Rifle shots crackle and a bullet hits nearby. Beyond the lines of barbed wire, the French line descends from a ravine into a dark, silent abyss. It is cold, windy, and gloomy. At dawn comes a lull. Corpses fill the trench like logs: Lamuse, Barque, Biquet, and Eudore, killed four nights before while on patrol with Bertrand, André Mesnil, and the narrator, searching for a new German listening post. Sappers recover the bodies. Joseph Mesnil goes out into "No Man's Land" in a vain search for his brother. The corpses seem monstrous to their comrades but a mere nuisance to those who have not known them. The narrator rejoins the reduced squad. Tirloir and Tulacque are both in the hospital with diseases. Conversations continue unchanged.

The squad is...