Finally we learn about the particular nature of the narrator’s involvement in the war: He supervises a group of ambulance drivers. At the start of this chapter, he briefly discusses the condition of the cars with his men. Rinaldi convinces the narrator to join him in visiting Miss Barkley. And so at sunset, on the grounds of a German villa converted to a British hospital, the narrator meets two nurses: Miss Barkley and her friend Helen Ferguson. Miss Barkley and the narrator talk of the war and of her fiancé, killed in combat the year before.
