Goodbye to All That

Around the beginning of 1916, the Royal Welch's Seventh Division sends Graves, along with two other company officers from each brigade, to Harfleur, in order to instruct "newly-arrived drafts" (181) for eight weeks. Most of the officers specialize in "mustketry, machine-guns, gas, or bombs" (181). Graves, however, with no real specialist training, delivers lectures on "trench relief and trench discipline" (181), including one he calls “How to be Happy, though in the Trenches.”

In their mess hall, the instructors talk about "the reliability of various divisions in battle, the value of different training methods, and war-morality" (181). The instructors agree the Midland County regiments make up the "most dependable British troops" (182), while "the latest New Army divisions and the second-line Territorial Divisions" (182), with their brand-new soldiers and officers, rank the lowest. About different training methods, though, the instructors' opinions vary. They do agree that "regimental pride" 188), rather than patriotism or religion, remains the "strongest moral force that kept a battalion going as an effective fighting unit" (188). Graves, along with some other instructors, uphold the value of drilling as the best preparation for combat. While many agree with Graves, believing that drilling prepares men to act as a cohesive unit, should their commanding officer be captured or killed, some instructors worry that drilling leads to a "loss of initiative in the men drilled" (187).

The instructors all despise "propaganda reports of atrocities" (182) committed by both the English and the Germans. Given their experiences in France, the English officers know that Germany has "never had the enemy on her soil" (183) and, therefore, cannot have committed the atrocities attributed to them by the newspapers. The instructors define atrocities as "rape, mutilation, and torture" (183), and exclude the "accidental-on-purpose bombing or machine-gunning of civilians from the air" (183), as the Allies have now done this, too. Graves and the others can't come to a solid definition of “atrocities” committed against soldiers by other soldiers, as combat seems to have made most things, even horrific things, common practice. 

Graves rejoins the Royal Welch First Battalion in March to help the effort on the Somme. The First Battalion busies itself with fortifying the French-made trenches to protect against a near-constant bombardment of German trench-mortar shells. At Fricourt, the trenches are cut into chalk soil, rather than clay, as in La Bassée. The German trench lines are also closer to the British than "at any other point for miles" (192).

One night, near a trench-juncture nicknamed Trafalgar Square, Graves chats with officers Richardson, Thomas, and Pritchard, and the Adjutant. Pritchard, the "Battalion Trench-Mortar Officer" (194), has just received two Stokes mortar-guns, which can "put four or five shells in the air at once" (194). The Adjutant comments that the guns have come just in time, as they've suffered 300 casualties in the last month there, though they haven't lost a single officer. The Adjutant realizes this statement is "unlucky" (194) and Thomas yells for everyone to "touch wood" (194). The French trench, though, has no wooden rivets. Only Graves manages to touch wood—a pencil in his pocket.

The next night, Graves leads A Company to the front trench line as a work-party. C Company joins them in working, to their right. Graves notices the night has an eerie quality, with the moon shining brightly at their backs as they work. When both the Germans and British are "busy putting up needful defenses" (195), as they are this night, they tend to leave each other alone. At 10:30 p.m., though, rifle-fire breaks out and the sentries pass the word that an officer has been hit. Richardson goes to investigate and discovers that Thomas has been hit in the neck, though the bullet doesn't seem to have hit his spine or artery. In fact, Thomas is "walking to the dressing-station" (195). Graves, "delighted" (195), thinks that now Thomas will be out of the Somme offensive, and maybe the rest of the war.

At midnight, A Company finishes their work. Richardson tells Graves to take the company in for rum and tea while he goes with Corporal Chamberlen to check on the wiring party. As Graves leads his men back to Headquarters, they hear shells falling into the trenches "somewhere behind" (196) them. They then hear a call for "stretcher-bearers" (196) and a man runs up to Graves to tell him, "Captain Graves is hit" (196). A Company laughs but when Graves sends a stretcher-party to investigate, he finds Chamberlen has lost a leg and Richardson has been blown "into a shell-hole full of water" (196). Both men will die of their wounds in a few days.

Later that evening, Graves receives news that Thomas has died of his neck wound. The Adjutant finds Graves sitting in the A Company Headquarters and tells him that he feels "responsible in a way for this" (197) because of what he had said about no officer casualties. At that moment, "three or four whizz-bang shells burst" (197) nearby and a call goes out for stretcher-bearers. They find out that Pritchard, returning from his post, has been caught in a direct hit. Graves, having lost so many friends, feels "empty and lost" (197), and close to his "breaking-point" (198).

The First Battalion receives new gas helmets, which require them to breathe in through their noses and out through their mouths. Graves, though, having suffered a broken nose in boxing, can only breath through his mouth. The Battalion doctor advises "a nose-operation as soon as possible" (198). Graves agrees to the procedure and misses serving in the beginning of the First Battalion's offensive. Graves learns that 60% of his fellow officers died in the offensive. 

Graves goes on leave, back to his parents' home in London, in April 1916. On the morning of Good Friday, Graves attends the last church service of his life. His father wants him to attend the early service for Good Friday at 6:30 a.m., but Graves, complaining about his toothache, continues sleeping. Not wanting to "face a religious argument" (199), Graves rises for breakfast and agrees to attend the morning service at 9:30 a.m. Despite himself, Graves argues with his father over breakfast.

When his parents go upstairs to dress for church, the owner of a nearby "bath-chair" (200), or hand-drawn carriage for one person, arrives at their house. Graves answers the door, thinking his parents have gotten the bath-chair for him. He feels embarrassed about leaving the house in "such a parade of infirmity" (200). It never occurs to Graves that the bath-chair might, as it turns out, be for his father, who suffers from gout. Graves helps his mother pull the bath-chair to the church. Graves suffers through the service, "dreadfully bored" (200). He takes the Sacrament to please his mother and gets asked about his war experiences by family friends.

After having another nasal surgery—free, due to his military service—Graves departs London for Harlech. He buys a small cottage from his mother, who owns "considerable house-property at Harlech" (202), and sets to work cleaning it, so he can live there after his service. Graves hopes to spend a year or two living there, eating simply and writing poetry. When Graves returns home, he goes with his father to dinner at a Welsh literary club, where he meets both Lloyd George, the British Secretary for War, and W.M. Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister.

Graves returns to the Royal Welch at Litherland, near Liverpool, joining with the Third Battalion. Graves knows a few men from his service at Wrexham, including Frank Jones-Bateman, “Father” Watkin, and Aubrey Attwater. Graves stays at Litherland for a few weeks, returning to combat at the Somme on July 1, 1916, when the offensive begins. Graves, "bitterly disappointed" (205), joins with the Second Battalion, not the First. The Second Battalion are stationed in the trenches at Givenchy, staging a retaliatory raid. A few days before the raid, the Germans use "the biggest mine blown on the Western Front so far" (205) and destroy most of B Company. Graves’s only part in this raid, though, is to "make a detailed report of it" (206) to send to the Depot for "filing in the Regimental Records" (206).

Only a few officers who know Graves remain with the Second Battalion. Still, though, Graves expects a "friendlier welcome" (207). Graves finds that one of the officers he served with in the Third Battalion, sent to France before Graves because of his efficiency, had made a jealous remark in public about "'jumped-up captains'" (207) like Graves. Rather than "putting him under arrest" (207), Graves retorts by quoting some lines of poetry about having two more stars than the officer. Later, Graves finds out that this officer has "unethically revived" (207) the suspicion that Graves, because of his German middle name, is a German spy. The "most notorious German spy" (207) caught in England also had the last name of Graves, and rumors have spread about a possible relationship. 

Four days after the raid, Graves and the Second Battalion arrive at the Somme. As they take ground, nearing the Germans, they come across the First Battalion bivouacs, or temporary shelters, recovering from heavy fighting. Graves finds out that his friend Siegfried Sassoon is still alive, having just taken "single-handed, a battalion frontage" (210) from the Germans. Sassoon, however, fails to then return to his company, opting instead to sit and read a book of poems. Graves and his company stay the night in the bivouacs outside Mametz Wood and, cold, Graves walks into the woods to find "German overcoats to use as blankets" (211). He takes some from the dead bodies he finds and carries them back to camp. Still "superstitious about looting" (211), though, Graves promises to return the coats.

On July 18, Graves and D Company, which he commands, move into position "just north of Bazentin-le-Petit" (212), to relieve the Tyneside Irish. On their way, D Company loses a dozen men to German gas-shells. Arriving at the trenches, Graves finds the "badly shaken Tyneside company" (212) trying to leave without the "usual formalities" (212). Graves asks their officer for information about the Germans' location and nearby English support, but the man doesn't know. Graves puts his men to work deepening the trenches and locating the Germans.

The next afternoon, D Company receives orders to build "two cruciform strong-points" (213), or x-shaped trenches, that allow soldiers to have cover and attack from any direction. By evening, Graves visits the second cruciform trench and finds that the party has stopped working. In the moonlight, they see "massed figures" (214) walking towards them. Graves advises his men not to fire on the figures until they're closer, thus killing more of them. However, the men turn out to be not Germans but the "Public Schools Battalion" (215) of the Royal Welch. The men have been out on patrol with no direction or objective.

On July 19, in the evening, D Company moves to the High Wood to assist with an offensive attack. The Royal Welch, now reduced to about 400 men, including "transport, stretcher-bearers, cooks and other non-combatants" (216), struggles to remain intact. Graves takes over command of B Company that evening and receives orders to provide backup for the Cameronians and Fifth Scottish Rifles as they try to take control of the High Wood. Graves waits until 11 a.m. the following morning before leading his company into battle. However, heavy German shelling keeps Graves from entering the battle himself. He finds himself hit in the groin and hand. He falls to the ground and remains there until the medics retrieve him.

The medics take Graves to the dressing-station, where he lies unconscious for a day. Mistaking Graves for dead, Colonel Crawshay writes to Graves’s mother of his death. Crawshay calls Graves "very gallant" (219) and a "great loss" (219). However, Graves recovers consciousness on July 21 and gets transferred to Heilly, the nearest field hospital. At Heilly, Graves hears from a brigade major about how the battle at High Wood went. The major commends the Second Royal Welch's artillery formation as "the most beautiful bit of parade-ground drill" (221) he's ever seen. He explains that the Second Royal Welch hung on "until to the near end" (221), at which point reinforcements arrived.

Graves, recovering from his wounds, gets transferred to a hospital at Rouen, away from the fighting. There, he writes his mother a letter, dated July 23, the day after Colonel Crawshay's letter, assuring his mother that he is, in fact, alive. At Rouen, Graves’s Aunt Susan visits him and confirms Graves’s letter to his mother. Graves himself receives a letter from Crawshay, telling him how glad he is to hear Graves is alive. Crawshay says they had "a rotten time" (223) securing High Wood and that they "lost heavily" (223). He commends Graves for his service, saying that his men would follow Graves to Hell, bring him back, and put him "in a dug-out in Heaven" (224).

As he recovers, Graves suffers from shortness of breath due to a lung hemorrhage. His hand injury hurts the worst but gets the least attention. The doctors aspirate Graves’s lung to save his life, a procedure Graves believes will be serious but finds non-invasive enough that he reads the paper while they do it. A day or two after the operation, Graves sails back to England on a hospital ship.