"The cornel was utterly dumbfounded. He looked from the coin in his hand to mother, to Charlie.".
She always manages to get her way without even having to raise her voice. It's the same when she is confronted by Molly's mother, who has just found out that Molly and Charlie have been sending each other letters even though they were banned from any contact. She imposes that it was Mrs Peaceful's fault that they were writing to each other. "The cornel has warned us, you know, about your sons wicked thieving ways. Oh yes we know all about him." But she responds in a calm and collected manor, as always, that they are seventeen and sixteen and have to right to make their own decisions. .
The novel is full of courage and innocence where Tommo is determined to recall everything that has happened to him in the past. Quite often the reader is left to wonder why he wants to remember it all quite so much, even though you can see yourself how much it hurts him to have to remember. The novel ends with a postscript that highlights the number of soldiers put to death by the firing squad for apparently showing desertion and cowardice. It is now known that these men were suffering from shell shock and were given unfair trials where there state of mind was never taken into consideration, only there physical actions. It also highlights the government's failure to award posthumous pardons to these soldiers, meaning that the government never officially stated that these soldiers were unfairly put to death, as they were found to be innocent after death. .
Throughout the story it is made apparent that Tommo shows great admiration for his older brother Charlie. Tommo states that, "being his real brother I could feel I live in his shadow, but I never have and I do not now. I live in his glow." .
This statement really shows how much Tommo respects everything that Charlie does. In the story Charlie is one of the most courageous characters in my opinion because of some many reasons.
