Kat and Kropp get in an argument over the war as they rest from an hour’s worth of drill (occasioned by Tjaden’s not saluting a major properly). Kat believes the war would be over if leaders gave all the participants “the same grub and the same pay,” as he says in a rhyme. Kropp believes the leaders of each country should fight each other in an arena to settle the war; the “wrong” people currently do the fighting.

I want to think and at the same time that's the last thing in the world I want to do.

Through the years our business has been killing;-it was our first calling in life. Our knowledge of lif eis limited to death.

We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost.

Sometimes I used to think that one day i should wake up, and all that had been would be over. forgotten, sunk, drowned. Nothing was sure - not even memory.

You may turn into an archangel, a fool, or a criminal—no one will see it. But when a button is missing—everyone sees that.

We came to realise - first with astonishment, then bitterness, and finally with indifference - that intellect apparently wasn't the most important thing...not ideas, but the system; not freedom, but drill. We had joined up with enthusiasm and with good will; but they did everything to knock that out of us.