It was like a slap in the face, he would have expected them to prevent those types of things from happening not causing them. (193).
"He shone his torch at the mud, in which he was wading up to his shins, and he saw there was a body lying in the road. It was a man without a trench coat. An officer. He had been shot in the back and was sprawled face down. Robert rolled him over carefully thinking he might still be alive. But he wasn't. He was quite dead and had been for more than an hour. It was Clifford Purchase." The fact Clifford was shot in the back indicates it was one of his fellow officers. This reinforces the betrayal by fellow officers theme because not only was Robert betrayed but a close friend he went to school with was also betrayed. In war there such a little amount of people one could trust and to be betrayed by those you depended on was hard for him to cope with, especially the rape. (201).
"Everything was there - including the picture of Rowena. Robert burned it in the middle of the floor. This was not an act of anger - but an act of charity." Throughout the novel, Roberts love and devotion for Rowena was evident, but it was not displayed to such an extent until he burned her picture as "an act of charity." The burning of the picture was an act of removing her from the world. He loves and honours he so much that he burns one of the few pictures that acknowledged her presence in the world because she was too good for the world. (195).
"His body was completely numb and his mind had shrunk to a small protective shell in which he hoarded the barest essentials of reason." Robert found it hard to keep himself sane in the chaos of the war and world. People were killing each other and only saw each other as dots. Men were killing without thought or feeling about whom they are killing. (201) This presents the theme of Robert attempting to keep his insanity in a chaotic and mad world.
