Goodbye to All That

Graves joins the Second Battalion "near Bouchavesnes on the Somme" (238). He finds himself warmly welcomed, though Dr. Dunn reproaches Graves for returning to the front with "kindly disapproval" (238). Dunn assigns Graves to command of the Headquarter Company, which consists of "Regimental clerks, cooks, tailors, shoemakers, pioneers, and transport men" (238) who can take up rifles if necessary. The men face a particularly cold winter, sleeping in dug-outs and trying not to freeze. Graves recalls the men playing football on the frozen river and hot food freezing on their tin plates before being eaten.

The Brigade appoints Graves to serve as a member of the Field General Court-Martial to prosecute an Irish sergeant for "shamefully casting away his arms in the presence of the enemy" (240). Knowing death is the punishment for cowardice, Graves feels conflicted about sitting on the jury. If he does, he will have to condemn a man to death for something Graves might have done "in similar circumstances" (240); on the other hand, if he doesn't serve, Graves himself may be court-martialed. Fortunately, another captain agrees to take Graves’s place in the trial.

When James Cuthbert, the acting C.O., becomes too sick to be in the trenches, Graves finds himself "in temporary command of the Battalion" (242). Graves attends a Commanding Officers' Conference at Brigade Headquarters to discuss the “biting off” of a German salient, or stronghold otherwise surrounded by British forces. When the General asks whether Graves is "proud to be attending a Commanding Officers' Conference at the age of twenty-one" (243), Graves replies that he hasn't thought about it but is old enough to "realize the impossibility of the attack" (243). Other officers voice agreement with Graves and the Brigadier calls off the attack.

Later that day, after heavy shelling by the Germans, Graves gets a message that D Company's horse-drawn artillery took a direct hit. On his way to check out the damage, Graves passes the "last dead man [he sees] in France" (243). Like the first dead man Graves saw, this man died of a self-inflicted gunshot. Graves finds D Company's horse stables empty and, with a few other officers, spends the night looking for their "highly valued horses" (243). After coming back to the dug-out empty-handed, Graves collapses on his cot. In the morning, Dr. Dunn diagnoses Graves with bronchitis and he returns to the Red Cross Hospital in Rouen. The Royal Army Medical Corps major recognizes Graves from his previous injuries and tells him that if his lungs put Graves up in the hospital again, he'll have him court-martialed. Graves asks to be transferred to a hospital at Oxford.

Graves finds himself at Somerville College at Oxford, which has been converted into a military hospital. While Graves dislikes "being away from the Regiment in France" (245), he feels relieved that he may live past the end of the war, which he feels will be soon. Writing to Sassoon, who is serving with the Second Battalion in France, Graves wonders "whether the War should be allowed to continue" (245). Sassoon agrees, writing that British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith should have accepted the peace terms offered by the Germans. Graves jokes that only men above 45 should be allowed to serve in the military, as he comes to see the War as "merely a sacrifice of the idealistic younger generation" (245).

Graves receives permission to serve as an instructor in "one of the Officer-Cadet Battalions quartered in the men's colleges" (246). There, Graves teaches drill, musketry, officer conduct, and "tactical exercises with limited objectives" (246). Since the beginning of the war, the platoon has "superseded the company as the chief tactical unit" (246), so the tactical exercises teach the officers to command small groups of men effectively. Most of the men in the training program come from British colonies or British public schools. Graves notes that they are mostly unfit for service.

The "damp Oxford climate" (247), however, causes problems with Graves’s lungs, so he gets taken back to Somerville. There, Graves enjoys a carefree existence, lounging in his pajamas and chatting with fellow soldiers. Graves falls in love with one of the nurses, Marjorie, though she has a fiancé. After regaining his strength, Graves moves to a convalescent home house in the Royal Family's Osborne Palace on the Isle of Wight. Graves enjoys this setting, and being made "honorary members of the Royal Yacht Squadron" (251). He and another soldier, Vernon Barlett, found the facetious “Royal Albert Society,” which aims to "revive interest in the life and times of the Prince Consort" (253). Graves also spends time visiting with the French Benedictine Fathers, who have been displaced from their abbeys in France and are living at nearby Quarr Abbey. Their "kindness, gentleness, and seriousness" (252) make an impression on Graves, who feels that, with the Fathers, "Catholicism ceased to repel" (253) him. 

In March 1917, Sassoon writes to Graves from the Second Battalion's station; they are resting until the end of the month near Morlancourt. Sassoon asks Graves to pull himself together and write back to him, as Sassoon feels "horribly low in spirits" (255). Sassoon finds only senior officers run the Second Battalion now and the only familiar face is an old antagonist of Graves’s. Sassoon and Graves have poems in the latest issue of The Nation, which Sassoon calls "a pacifist organ" (256). Soon, though, heavy fighting breaks out and Sassoon leads his platoon to support the Scottish Cameronians. Though shot through the throat, Sassoon holds their position with a six-man bombing party. The battle is unsuccessful, though, and the Cameronians lose the territory to the Germans.

In a hospital back in London, Sassoon writes to Graves again. He says he sees "corpses lying about on the pavements" (256) of London and expresses dismay at "the countless good men being slaughtered[…]all for nothing" (257). Sassoon wishes he could "do something in protest" (257) but fears being accused of merely "being afraid of shells" (257). He writes and publishes a handful of poems in an "aggressively pacifist journal" (258) but feels he has something more in his head than poems.

At the end of July, in 1917, Graves receives another letter from Sassoon, consisting of a single newspaper clipping. On one side of the clipping runs an opinion essay defending conscientious objectors; on the other side runs Sassoon's public letter condemning the war. Sassoon writes "on behalf of soldiers" (260), saying he can no longer support an "end which [he] believe[s] to be evil and unjust" (260). Sassoon also writes that he hopes to "destroy the callous complacence" (260) of the war's supporters at home, who cannot imagine the horrors suffered by soldiers abroad.

Sassoon's letter fills Graves with "anxiety and unhappiness" (261). Though he agrees with Sassoon's assertion about the "political errors and insincerities" (261) driving England's continued military engagement, Graves worries that Sassoon is in no physical nor mental condition to accept the punishment for publishing the letter in a newspaper. Graves decides to help defend Sassoon from the potential court-martialing that could follow the publication. First, he writes to an influential private secretary asking him to help prevent Sassoon from becoming "a martyr to a hopeless cause in his present physical condition" (261). Then, Graves writes to Major Macartney-Filgate, the Third Battalion's second-in-command, telling him about Sassoon's victories in France and asking for his medical board, or discharge, and "indefinite leave" (262).

Sassoon writes to Graves from the Exchange Hotel in Liverpool, knowing Graves will be worried about him. Sassoon says that he spoke with Major Macartney-Filgate and found him "unimaginably decent" (262) and willing to help. With the Major and the secretary's help, the War Office decides to give Sassoon a hearing at the medical board for discharge, rather than pursue a disciplinary course. Graves comes to meet Sassoon in Liverpool and tells him that it's no good "offering common sense to the insane" (262). He tries to get Sassoon to understand that no one, not even the most sympathetic person, will see Sassoon's point-of-view. Sassoon refuses to agree, though he eventually agrees to be seen by the medical board.

Graves does his best to "rig the medical board" (263). He applies for permission to give evidence as Sassoon's friend and finds three doctors on the board: one "patriotic and unsympathetic" (263), one "reasonable but ignorant" (263), and one with a sound mind—Graves’s "only hope" (263). Graves manipulates the doctors with an anguished testimony, complete with tears, and gets them all to agree to give Sassoon medical discharge. Sassoon gets sent to "a convalescent home for neurasthenics" (264) near Edinburgh, Scotland. There, Sassoon comes under the care of a Freudian psychologist named Professor W.H.R. Rivers, who works exclusively with neurasthenics. He and Sassoon become close friends. 

Graves resumes his military service, though he realizes quickly he "should not have been back on duty" (265). Stationed at Third Battalion training camp back at Litherland, Graves sees a man poisoned by sewage waste from a munitions factory and nearly faints. Graves trains the legions of men drafted into the various Battalions and hears Colonel Jones-Williams giving "a familiar speech" (266) to the newly enlisted. The draft cheers "rather too vigorously" (266). Graves decides he would like to leave Litherland, fearing the misty weather will upset his damaged lungs again. He thinks about returning to France but decides against it because of his fear of poison gas. Graves begins to wonder about fighting in Palestine, where "gas was unknown and shell-fire inconsiderable" (268), when compared with France.

At his next medical board hearing, Graves, deemed fit for B2 garrison service in England, thinks he should be able to work his way up to B1, or service in Egypt, then A1, or service in Palestine. Graves arrives at Owestry, Wales, to serve with the Third Garrison there.

During his time at Owestry, Graves remembers Nancy Nicholson, a neighbor of his family's in Harlech. He last saw her in the summer of 1917, having taken 16-year-old Nancy to a musical. Nancy, a painter, lives on a farm by herself. On leave in October 1917, Graves visits Nancy there, helping her with her chores. The two begin an intimate epistolary correspondence. Nancy warns Graves that she is a feminist, so he must "be careful" (269) what he says about women. Nancy also sums up Christianity as "all rot" (270) because God is a man; Graves agrees with this.

Graves receives his upgrade to B1 but draws assignment in Gibraltar, rather than Egypt. His friend at the War Office grants Graves a postponement of his service abroad. Graves begins service at Rhyl, Wales, a post he enjoys. In December 2017, Nancy and Graves marry in a small church service with Nancy, firmly opposed to traditional ceremony, "savagely muttering" (272) her vows and Graves shouting his "in a parade-ground voice" (272). At the reception, sugar and butter rations render their cake nearly inedible and they have only a few bottles of champagne to share. After a few glasses, Nancy changes from her wedding dress into her standard "land-girl's costume of breeches and smock" (272). A month or two later, Nancy becomes pregnant.

Graves writes that none of his friends approved of his engagement to a girl as young as Nancy. One friend writes to Graves, warning that Nancy has "Negro blood" (274). Sassoon, having never met Nancy, also opposes the union. He writes to Graves from the hospital in Edinburgh, saying that he has decided to return to France, even though he's still a pacifist. Sassoon has received a letter from their friend in the First Battalion explaining that his company had to walk through "three miles of morass, shell-holes, corpses and horses" (274) to bring rations to their men. This upset Sassoon, who felt guilty about not serving alongside his friends. Sassoon tells his doctor that he will return to France and demands a written guarantee that he will be stationed overseas. Sassoon receives a post in Palestine and, in May 1918, writes to Graves with enthusiasm about his new platoon. He calls them "the best he'd ever served with" (276) and reproaches Graves for trying to turn against him.

In July 1918, Nancy's mother contracts Spanish influenza. She holds on until Nancy's brother, Tony, returns to London for his leave but dies shortly after. On the same day, Graves hears that Sassoon has been shot through the head but, once again, has survived. Tony dies in combat the next September. Graves continues "mechanically" (277) at his work. In November, the Armistice comes. Graves claims that "Armistice-night hysteria" (278) did not affect his men at Rhyl. Instead, that night, Graves walks alone along the marshes of Rhuddlan, "cursing and sobbing and thinking of the dead" (278). 

In mid-December, Graves receives a new post with the Royal Welch Third Battalion at Castle Barracks, Limerick. Though many members of Sinn Fein, an Irish political party who support liberation from the British, live in Limerick, they get on fairly well with the Welsh. Once, when asked by the Adjutant to search for rifles in the villages, Graves declines, explaining that, "as an Irishman" (280), he did not want to be "mixed up in Irish politics" (280). However, with Nancy and their young daughter, Jenny, at home, Graves soon becomes disenchanted with continued military service and decides to seek "demobilization" (281).

Upon starting this process, Graves finds a few obstacles. First, he realizes that without a college degree, there are few jobs available to him. Graves writes to a friend at the War Office, asking the man to hurry Graves’s demobilization process. The man says he will do his best. Graves finally receives word that his demobilization has gone through but that all demobilization among troops in Ireland will cease the following day, due to civil unrest amongst the Irish. Graves, having come down with influenza, decides to "make a run for it" (283). All he needs are a Commanding Officer's signature that he had handled no government money in the past six months and the "secret code-marks" (283) only the Battalion demobilization officer had. Graves gets his C.O. signature from Macartney-Filgate, an old friend of his. Graves barely catches his train to London's Waterloo Station. On the train, Graves reads about a railroad strike scheduled for the following day. He exits the train in Paddington and shares a taxi to Waterloo with another officer and his wife. The officer, the "Cork District Demobilization Officer" (285), offers to share his secret code-marks for Graves’s demobilization as a token of his gratitude for sharing the taxi.

After returning home, Nancy's father lends them a house to live at in Harlech. They stay for about a year. Graves finds himself still shaken by the war and practicing some of his combat habits, such as "commandeering anything of uncertain ownership" (287) on his walks and "working out tactical problems" (287) on the land around them. The Graves survive on Graves’s savings, War Bonus, and disability pension. Graves, "very thin, very nervous and with about four years' loss of sleep" (288), plans to attend Oxford on an education grant upon his recovery. Graves feels "ashamed" (288) of himself for not having a secure source of income, but he has sworn to "live by writing" (288) alone.

Sassoon has recently "accepted the literary editorship of the newly-published Daily Herald" (288), a "violently anti-militarist" (288) newspaper. Reading the Herald each morning, with reports of "unemployment all over the country[…]market rigging, lockouts, and abortive strikes" (288) upsets both Graves and Nancy. They both begin to call themselves socialists. For Nancy, though, Graves feels socialism is "a means to a single end: […]equality between the sexes" (289). Nancy feels strongly that "male domination and narrow-mindedness" (289) account for all that is wrong in the world. Soon, Nancy can't bear a newspaper in the house for fear of reading about "women's limited intelligence" (289) and other sexist topics. To their family's upset, Nancy also refuses to be called “Mrs. Graves,” nor to baptize their daughter, Jenny.