Cyril Bagger

Cyril Bagger is the novel’s central consciousness, a private in Company P whose greatest skill is surviving by reading people and bending rules. He treats the Meuse-Argonne front like a rigged game, relying on quick talk, practiced cynicism, and a sharp sense of odds to keep himself alive. Early on, that strategy curdles into moral cowardice when he manipulates a trench lottery that sends Lewis Arno into No Man’s Land. He follows anyway, revealing that his self-preservation still leaves room for attachment and shame.

When the patrol discovers the luminous woman tangled in wire, Bagger becomes her most practical handler, keeping her hooded, lifting her when others hesitate, and steering the group through hunger, shelling, and betrayal. He pushes back against Hugh Popkin’s possessive brutality and Vincent Goodspeed’s predatory opportunism, but he also calculates what delivering the angel to Major General Lyon Reis...