The next day, Paul tries to comprehend why Haie joins souvenir hunters in collecting parachute silk and copper bands. The carefree larks and butterflies seem out of place in this No Man's Land. Although the cannons have stopped shelling them, spotter planes strafe them with gunfire. Eleven men die hideously. Lacking transport to proper burial sites, Paul and the others heap the dead three layers deep in shell holes.
Inexperienced recruits fail as reinforcements and die because they have no survival skills. Himmelstoss, panicked by the reality of front-line duty, nurses a slight wound until Paul forces him out of the dugout with insults and a rap on the head. At a lieutenant's order, Himmelstoss joins the others. Paul becomes disoriented. In his words, "[W]e run, we throw, we shoot, we kill, we lie about, we are feeble and spent. . . ." Paul and the other experienced infantrymen teach recruits how to use their ears to determine which projectiles are incoming and where they will land. Haie, severely wounded in the back, drags himself along, acknowledging to Paul that death is near. As autumn arrives, the line maintains its hold on the trenches, but roll call reveals that only thirty-two out of a hundred and fifty men of Second Company survive.
