Soon they spot German soldiers in the distance. One driver is shot to death by fellow Italians firing in error. Another driver flees, to surrender to the Germans. Finally safe from the enemy, Lieutenant Henry observes that Italian army officers like himself are being shot by the military police for deserting their troops. He also fears being mistaken for a German spy. And so he dives into the Tagliamento River, deserting the Italian army, and swims ashore downstream. Henry crosses part of the Venetian plain on foot, then boards a moving train, hiding among guns stored beneath a tarpaulin.
Frederic (no longer Lieutenant) Henry arrives in Milan, incognito. Catherine Barkley and Helen Ferguson are absent from the hospital, having gone on holiday to the Italian resort town of Stresa. So Henry travels via train to Stresa, where he finds Catherine and Helen. Discovering late one night that Henry will be arrested as a deserter in the morning, Henry and Catherine quickly prepare to escape into neutral Switzerland. Through the stormy night, they travel in a small, open boat across Lake Maggiore. The following day they are arrested and briefly detained by Swiss officials, after which they are released.
Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley move into a chalet on a mountain above Montreaux and spend an idyllic winter there. At winter's end, they leave the mountains for a hotel in Lausanne. Finally, Henry takes Catherine to the hospital, where her baby is stillborn. Then, as a result of multiple hemorrhages, Catherine dies as well.
