The officers shared the same kind of upbringing; all came
from private
schools and were highly educated. Raleigh and Stanhope both came
from
the same school and were friends outside school, often visiting one
and others homes.
have been working in different
jobs for a while before being drafted whereas
Stanhope and Raleigh
came straight from school into the officer’s life. Not
much is known
about trotter as he is not talked about much in the story but
it is my
assumption that he was also from a private school.
Osborne and Trotter were both drafted as officers because of their
professions; they are both regarded highly in society. Stanhope and
Raleigh however were drafted as officers because of the professions of
family members, Stanhope’s father is a vicar and Raleigh’s uncle is a
senior officer, meaning he is most likely from a military background.
In terms of age of the officers, Osborne is by far the most aged of
the officers being called uncle says this quite clearly that they are
mocking his age in a friendly manner. Though Osborne is older Stanhope
is senior to him, many comments are made that Osborne should run the
company but Osborne sticks up for the young commander. Although
Stanhope is superior he values the opinion of his lower officers.
It is clear from the conversations that they all enjoy sport,
especially “Ruggers” or rugby as more commonly known. It shows that
they are all abundant in physical strength and it shows that Stanhope
has good leadership skills as he captained the cricket team in school.
Osborne however trumps him by telling Raleigh how he capped for the
England rugby team, but he swore Raleigh to secrecy so he may be lying
about that.
The officers are all fighting so that they can
get back to their
families in England and get on with their lives. They are
fighting for
their own freedom and the freedom of their families. However
Stanhope
thinks that the war has changed him so much he will never be the
same
when he gets home.
At one point Trotter takes out
some dirty postcards to show to his
fellow officers, in today’s standards
that would be no more than a
page three tabloid cut-out if not less, but
their raising has taught
them that it is wrong to treat women so
disrespectfully so they do not
look at the postcards.
The
officers all trust one another but this trust is breached on one
occasion
when Raleigh writes a letter and Stanhope demands to see it
thinking that he
may have written something about him in it which
would alert his family to
his change since he has been on the front
line.
Officer
values were the same in both the German trenches as the Allied
ones, such as
on one occasion a man lay screaming in no mans land in
clear line of German
fire and a German officer got up out of the
trench and shouted to come get
him some help and get him out of
no-mans land.
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