When leaving for war, Robert senses all of his childhood in the mist around him, " the mist was filled with rabbits and Rowena and his father and his mother and the whole of his past life---birth and death and childhood. He could breathe them in and breathe them out."(p.14) Robert is able to breathe in this air. Air is a death-bringing element, and is polluted with hatred. Robert constantly senses the air turning hostile, "It stank of sulphur and chlorine."(p.125) The unfriendly nature of air is seen when Robert is on convoy duty, "The air was foul with thick green fog. There was a smell that Robert could not decipher."(p.79) Whenever Robert breathes in, he can remember the safety that home provided, "Slithering over the crater's rim---a pale blue fog appeared. Like a veil his mother might've worn."(p.137) Robert tries to save the life of the man with the broken legs by giving him his mask, "Put that over his face."(p.139) In the same scene, Robert allows the others to breathe by ordering the men to urinate on their handkerchiefs and placing them over their faces. Robert brings air from his childhood to the infected atmosphere of the war, "It was an image clear and definite as the words themselves: two tiny bottles poised side by side. Crystals forming in the air. Ammonium-chloride---a harmless dusty powder blown off the back of someone's hand."(p.140) The meaning associated with air continue to change throughout the novel.
Water, being the third natural element, plays a very important role in The Wars and undergoes from being pure to deadliness. After being brutally beaten by Teddy Budge, Robert retreats to a hot bath where he is healed, "That night Robert was lying in the bathtub, soothing his aches and bruises with water that was almost scalding hot."(p.20) When Robert first decides that he is going to the war, he stands for a long time on the train station platform debating what he is going to do, "Right to the very last second-hearing an approaching train that might have taken him home---he did not know in which direction he would go: down into the puddle and up to the town or back along the platform.
