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This chapter is the key to the book. The plot reaches its climax, and Henry\'s attitude toward the war, which has already undergone gradual change, changes dramatically. The theme of disillusionment comes to the fore.
Trying to rejoin the main body of the retreat, Henry, still taking the responsibility for the few men left in his command, shepherds the three drivers toward Udine. They have some narrow escapes from roving German troops, but, in another example of war\'s irony, when a driver is killed, it is by Italian snipers who are panicking and firing at anything that moves.
The three survivors hole up in a nearby barn. Bonello runs off to surrender, and there are only two left: Piani, gentler now that he has no audience, and Henry, who in the refuge of the hayloft is trying unsuccessfully to make sense of Aymo\'s death.
They rejoin the main flow of the retreat. Shouts of defeat and surrender ring out from the fleeing troops. They reach the Tagliamento River, a good place for a stand against the advancing enemy. If they can get across the bridge, they reason, they will be safe, at least temporarily.
It is on the bridge that the climax of the book occurs. Officers and carabinieri (whose brutality was foreshadowed back in Chapter 9) are pulling men out of line and taking them away. They nab a lieutenant colonel and Henry. He tries to resist, and then to talk his way out, but in so doing shows that he speaks accented Italian. That does it, the carabinieri think he\'s a German infiltrator.
Be sure to pick up the tone of the writing that follows. Henry, for example, drips irony that verges on sarcasm. \"The questioners had that beautiful detachment and devotion to stern justice of men dealing in death without being in any danger of it.\" And later, \"The questioners had all the efficiency, coldness and command of themselves of Italians who are firing and not being fired on.\"
And then there\'s the poor colonel. He\'s fat and gray-haired, unheroic-looking, but able to meet death with what Hemingway deems the proper composure. The language of the questioners is grandiose and empty: \"sacred soil of the fatherland,\" \"fruits of victory.\" (Remember Henry and the patriot Gino in Chapter 27?) The unfortunate colonel\'s answer shows great understatement and courage: \"If you are going to shoot me, please shoot me at once without further questioning. The questioning is stupid.\"
They shoot him, and then shoot another officer. Henry is next, but he breaks loose, dives into the river, and escapes. Readers have made a great deal out of this dive. It\'s a baptism, some say, a ritual entry into a new life. Others view it as a symbolic cleansing of the soil of war. Still others think of it as a convenient, practical, and believable way for a writer to get his hero out of a predicament. It is certainly the last; whatever else you want to read into it depends on how far you want to go into Hemingway\'s symbolism.
In any case, a climactic change has occurred. Henry, a different person, is now going in a different direction--away from the army, away from the war.
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