Summary
Twenty-Five Past Three
In the present moment, Tommo watches the mouse and thinks of a Scottish poem that Ms. McAllister made him memorize. Earlier, other men came to him and asked him if he'd like company through the night. Tommo told them no; he also sent away the military chaplain who had been sent to speak with him. All he has for company is a mouse.
The narrative moves back to the war. Tommo and Charlie's unit is sent to Ypres, an area that has been under heavy bombardment for months. The town is surrounded on three sides. The British soldiers call the town Wipers, and as the soldiers march through, Tommo notices that there is barely a town left.
The trenches are in terrible shape, and the unit's new commander is a man named Buckland. Despite the fact that he is their superior officer, he knows even less about fighting a war than the rest of them do.
The next morning, Tommo surveys no man's land. There's no grass or trees anymore, though there are many corpses, one of them pointing upwards. A blackbird sings on a barbed-wire fence.
A bombardment starts shortly thereafter and lasts for two days. The men can neither talk, nor sleep, nor leave their dugout, for fear of death. Tommo cries and wonders what will happen when the bombardment ends—if, perhaps, he should be prepared for gas or a flamethrower.
When it finally ends, the men are ordered out with gas masks on and bayonets fixed. Tommo and Charlie see the enemy emerge from the smoke with their bayonets, hundreds of them. Charlie tells him that he'll be fine—he just needs to stick with his older brother. The English soldiers start firing at the advancing German line, and the enemy starts falling. Ultimately, the barbed wire stops them, and the English fire cuts them down. Tommo feels a surge of triumph and remembers the women who called him a coward. He feels as though he has finally truly proven her wrong.
The English advance to the German side and they are surprised when the Germans are nowhere to be found. Suddenly, a shell explodes and Tommo flings himself into the mud. Everything is unreal and soundless as he watches his fellow soldiers die. Buckland hauls Tommo to his feet, but he is hit and dies as Tommo watches. Tommo manages to get back to the dugout, but Charlie is nowhere to be seen.
By morning, Tommo has decided that Charlie must be dead and wonders how to break the news to Mother and Molly. Mother would tell Big Joe that Charlie is up in heaven, but Tommo himself no longer believes in heaven. That night on watch duty, Charlie looks at the stars and thinks about his family.
Suddenly, Tommo sees something move beyond the wire. It's Charlie, who was shot in the foot but has now dragged himself back.
Charlie is taken to the hospital and then sent home for a short period of time. Tommo is somewhat upset to be abandoned by his brother.
Tommo goes to the local pub with the rest of the men, but he cannot enjoy himself. He sees the beautiful girl again, and they look at the stars together. They talk about their lives and how old they are. The girl, whose name is Anna, is amused by Tommo's name because "Tommy" is a slang term for an English soldier. She kisses him on the cheek and Tommo heads back to camp, singing happily.
When he returns to camp, his friend Pete has bad news: their new sergeant is Horrible Hanley, who continues to treat them all more cruelly than the German soldiers ever did.
Nearly Four O’Clock
In the present, the sun is starting to rise. Tommo dreads the dawn. In the past, mornings were happy times, but as a soldier, Tommo has woken every morning wondering who would die that day and if it would be him. He reasons that the only thing that is different about today is the fact that he knows whose death it will be.
Back in the past, shortly after Charlie leaves, a bunch of new recruits joins the company. Tommo and his original companions seem like grizzled veterans to them, and Tommo is distracted from his fears by his new status.
Life remains fairly quiet on the front lines. There are a few exchanges of fire, but it is spring now and the men go to bed dry, which is a delightful treat.
However, things change suddenly one day while Tommo is writing a letter home. Someone screams "gas!" and the men rush to put on their gas masks. Hanley orders them to fix their bayonets, which the men struggle to do as well. Tommo watches the gas roll towards them but struggles to get his mask on. He recalls his instructor saying that a gas mask is like God: it will work if you believe in it. Tommo doesn't believe in God anymore.
Tommo tries to run, but he trips and knocks his mask off. The gas burns his lungs and makes him cough and retch. He sees a German soldier standing before him, but the man lowers his rifle and tells Tommy to go.
At the hospital, Tommo learns that his side has managed to retake the trenches. He recovers quickly, having gotten only a small whiff of gas (though that was bad enough). However, his friend, Nipper Martin, is dead.
When he returns to the camp, Tommo finds two letters waiting for him. One is from Molly, talking about the happenings and the village and the baby boy to whom Molly has given birth. She is also happy that Charlie was able to visit for a short time as he recovered from his wounds. Tommo is delighted to hear that Molly has decided to name the baby Tommy. The other letter is from Charlie, who mentions that he's told the family they're having a "fine time" in combat in Belgium. Tommo is frustrated that his brother has not told them the truth.
Hanley tells the regiment that they shamed him by fleeing from the gas attack, so he redoubles his training efforts. A soldier who is found sleeping at his post is lashed to the wheel, just like Charlie was back at the training camp. Tommo considers fleeing to Anna or otherwise deserting, but he does not.
Hanley does grant the men one night of freedom, and they head to the pub. Tommo looks for Anna but cannot find her. He eventually asks her father where she is, and the man informs her that Anna is dead from the war they're fighting. Apparently, Anna was driving the cart home when she was hit by a shell. Anna's father tells Tommo that he and all of the other soldiers—British, German, French—can go to hell. Tommo visits Anna's grave and kisses the earth.
Charlie returns not long thereafter. Hanley greets him irritably, telling him that he doesn't like malingerers, but Charlie responds cheerily. Later, when he is talking with Tommo, Charlie seems unwilling to speak about home and tells Tommo that this is because he would like to keep those worlds separate.
Another bombardment begins that lasts for days. The men huddle in the dugout and try not to think about the fact that a direct hit will be their deaths. Tommo curls into a ball and starts screaming; Charlie begins to sing "Oranges and Lemons." The German troops attack, but they are gunned down by the British before they even reach the trenches. Suddenly Tommo sees blood pouring down his face and feels a burning pain in his head. He collapses.
Analysis
Because it is impossible to retrieve corpses from no man's land, Charlie is forced to look at the fallen bodies of his fellow English soldiers, knowing that he, too, might become a corpse in a relatively short period of time. And yet, even in this terrible moment, he still sees a blackbird singing on a barbed-wire fence, a sight that gives him some small hope. Birds represent hope and the human soul, and just as the sight of the bird at his father's funeral gives him hope, this blackbird does as well.
When Charlie reappears alive, the brothers share a happy reunion. However, not all is peaceful: Tommo is somewhat angry that Charlie will be allowed home, even for a short period of time, while he is still forced to stay in combat. Moreover, Charlie's disappearance and injured foot raise questions about the possibility that he was a deserter. Later, the reader learns that foot injuries are often looked upon with suspicion by commanding officers because they are very easy injuries to fake.
It is clear from this section that the question of the "enemy" in wartime is a loose term. Tommo states that the English soldiers hate Hanley far more than they ever hated any German solider, and this makes sense: the German soldiers hold no malice and are simply trying to do their jobs, whereas Hanley seems to enjoy torturing the men for no clear reason at all. Hanley's reappearance and his enmity towards Charlie suggest that there will be a conflict in the future. Likewise, the German soldier who sees Tommo coughing and retching from the poison gas lets him go, a surprising act of mercy for wartime.
The death of Anna shows the brutality of wartime. Anna was initially introduced as a potential love interest for Tommo, and her gentle presence brought comfort and happiness to the soldiers. However, she was killed by a random shell when running errands for her father, and she and Tommo will never have the chance to explore what might have been between them. Anna thereby becomes symbolic of all the innocent young people killed during wartime.
