The Patrol and Killing of Gérard Duval

The Patrol and Killing of Gérard Duval is the most intimate and morally devastating act of violence in All Quiet on the Western Front. After returning from leave, Paul Bäumer volunteers for a patrol to gauge enemy strength. The mission goes wrong: a heavy bombardment separates him from his comrades, and he lies alone in a waterlogged shell-hole in No Man's Land. When a French soldier stumbles into the same hole, Paul stabs him in a blind, animal panic. Then begins an ordeal that lasts from early morning until mid-afternoon, during which Paul must watch the man he has killed die slowly, tend his wounds, read his letters, and learn his name. This event transforms the war from a collective, mechanical slaughter into a personal crime, and it leaves Paul haunted by the face and the name of the man he murdered.

Background and the Patrol

Paul volunteers for the patrol shortly after his return from leave, a period that has left him feeling estranged from home and acutely aware of his own vulnerability. The patrol is a routine reconnaissance mission, but Paul's state of mind is fragile. He is still carrying the unsettling memories of his leave—his mother's illness, the hollow conversations with civilians, the sense that he no longer belongs anywhere but the front. As he crawls forward alone into the darkness, a wave of irrational fear overwhelms him. He hears his mother's voice, sees the faces of Russian prisoners, and imagines a rifle muzzle following his every move. The sweat pours from him, and he lies paralyzed in a shallow shell-hole, unable to advance. It is only the sound of his comrades' voices from the trench behind him—the voices of Kat and Albert—that breaks the spell and gives him the courage to move forward again. This moment of near-collapse foreshadows the psychological breaking point he will reach when he is forced to kill with his own hands.

The Killing in the Shell-Hole

A heavy bombardment pins Paul down in a large shell-hole, with water up to his belly. He lies motionless, pretending to be dead, as the first wave of an enemy attack passes over him. Then a body crashes into the hole and lands across him. Acting on pure instinct, without thought or decision, Paul stabs upward with his dagger. The body convulses and goes limp. Only afterward does Paul realize what he has done: he has killed a man at close range, with his own hands, and now must share the shell-hole with the dying body. The man is not dead, but dying slowly, gurgling and gasping. Paul crawls to the farthest corner of the hole, his knife still in his hand, ready to strike again if the man stirs. But the man does not stir; he only lies there, bleeding, and the hours stretch out interminably.

The Hours with the Dying Man

As dawn breaks, Paul sees his victim clearly for the first time: a man with a small pointed beard, dark curly hair, and brown eyes. The man is conscious and looks at Paul with an expression of utter terror. Paul is powerless to move under that gaze. He begins to whisper, "No, no, no," and strokes the man's forehead. He fetches water from the muddy bottom of the crater in his handkerchief and gives it to the man to drink. He tries to bandage the three stab wounds in the man's chest, cutting open his shirt with the same knife he used to stab him. The man groans and gurgles, and Paul realizes he cannot be saved. He wishes he had his revolver so he could shoot him and end his suffering, but he cannot bring himself to stab him again. The hours pass in an agony of waiting, hunger, and thirst. Paul fetches water again and again, for the dying man and for himself. By noon, he is groping on the outer limits of reason. The gurgling continues, and Paul stuffs his ears, then takes his fingers away because the silence is even worse.

The Name and the Letters

In desperation, Paul takes the man's wallet from his tunic. He hesitates, knowing that once he learns the man's name, he will never be able to forget him. But he opens it anyway. Inside are portraits of a woman and a little girl, amateur photographs taken against an ivy-clad wall, and letters. Paul tries to read the letters, laboriously translating the French, and each word pierces him like a shot. He realizes he will never dare to write to these people as he had intended. He looks at the portraits again and sees that they are clearly not rich people. He seizes on the idea of sending them money anonymously, a desperate attempt to buy himself off from the guilt. He opens the man's paybook and reads the name: Gérard Duval, compositor. With the dead man's pencil, he writes the address on an envelope and thrusts everything back into the tunic. He has killed the printer, Gérard Duval. The name is a nail that will be hammered into him and never come out again.

Aftermath and Return

By afternoon, the man is dead. Paul props him up comfortably, closes his eyes, and speaks to him, promising to fight against the war that has struck them both down. But as evening approaches, the lust to live flares up again, and Paul knows he will not keep his promises. He crawls out of the shell-hole and makes his way back to the German trench, calling out to his comrades. Kat and Albert have come out with a stretcher to look for him. They give him food and a cigarette, and he tells them what happened in a few words. They try to calm him: "You can't do anything about it. What else could you have done? That is what you are here for." Paul listens and feels comforted, reassured by their presence. The next day, he watches Sergeant Oellrich shoot snipers from the fire-step and hears Kat say, "It's very good for you to see it just now." And Paul hardly understands his own horror anymore. The war has absorbed even this most personal of crimes into its routine, but the name Gérard Duval remains, a permanent scar on his conscience.