Goodbye to All That

Graves and the rest of the Second Battalion spend a few weeks recuperating at Annezin, near Béthune. Graves billets with an elderly woman named Adelphine who enjoys disparaging "the shamelessness of modern girls" (166) while recounting her escapades as a beautiful young woman in the 1870s. While staying with Adelphine, Graves observes that he and most of the English soldiers find it "difficult to sympathize" (167) with the French. The French, too, don't seem to care whether they're on the "German or the British side of the line" (168).

On October 15th, Graves receives a promotion to Special Reserve captain. Though pleased that his pay will increase, Graves has trepidation about being promoted, at age 20, over men with "longer trench service[…]better trained" (169) than himself. Graves asks the Adjutant if he can refrain from wearing his "badges of rank" (169) while serving but the Adjutant refuses the request.

The remainder of Graves’s service with the Royal Welch's Second Battalion passes fairly uneventfully. Graves becomes numb to the "excitement in patrolling" (170) and the "continual experience of death" (170). The only noteworthy experience Graves has after October involves developing a method for "silencing machine-guns firing at night.