A coffin hits the fourth man and Kropp keeps him from tearing off his gas mask. The injured man is the young recruit Paul comforted earlier, and they try to free his arm from underneath a coffin. As these anxious moments go on, Paul feels as though he is suffocating, because he is breathing the same air over and over in his gas mask. The cemetery is a mess of corpses and coffins. The barrage lets up and they discover that the recruit is hit on the hip; Kat surmises that he will never walk again and sees that the young victim's arm is bleeding also. As with the horses, Kat suggests they shoot the young recruit and put him out of his misery, because Kat knows what the young man will go through in his final days if they don't. Paul agrees, but before they can shoot him other soldiers arrive, so they must get a stretcher and call for a medic.
In the battle, five are killed and eight are wounded. Two of the dead lie in graves, so they simply throw dirt on them. An hour later, they reach the lorries and, in the desperate early morning hours, rain begins to fall.
