Summary

When Dunston Ramsay goes to Europe to fight in the war, he does not know where he is going, and he is afraid of the older men in the army, who seems to want to turn him into someone like themselves. He does not particularly enjoy army life, but he excels at it. It cost him something to do this, though, as he is bored stiff by a lifestyle bent on conformity and does not give him anything to think about.

Life in the trenches is filthy and terrifying, and Ramsay says he is more or less afraid for three years. In 1917, at the Battle of Ypres, Ramsay is selected with five others to try to dislodge a German machine gun nest. Flares are sent up over the six men as they crawl through the filthy mud toward the machine gun, and when Ramsay is disoriented...