Bertinck

Bertinck is the company commander of the Second Company, a decent and courageous front-line officer who rose from the ranks and is killed in action in the summer of 1918 while destroying a flamethrower team.

Identity and Background

Bertinck is the lieutenant in command of the Second Company. He came to the company as a non-commissioned officer and was promoted from the ranks, a background that gives him an understanding of the men he leads. When a dispute erupts between the soldiers and the sergeant-cook Ginger over the distribution of rations meant for one hundred and fifty men when only eighty remain, Bertinck appears, informs himself of the situation, and resolves it with a simple, practical order: "Serve out all the rations. We can do with them." He knows what his men are thinking and does not stand on ceremony. During the trial of Tjaden for insubordination against Himmelstoss, Bertinck hears the evidence, lectures Himmelstoss that the front is not a parade-ground, and gives Tjaden three days' open arrest while giving Kropp a wink and only one day's open arrest, remarking regretfully, "It can't be helped." He is described as a decent fellow.

Leadership Through the War

Bertinck survives two years at the front without being wounded, a remarkable span that speaks to his skill and luck. After the heavy losses of a prolonged offensive, when the company is reduced from one hundred and fifty men to just thirty-two, Bertinck is one of the survivors. He appears with his arm in a sling, calling out the company number again and again, then huskily asking "Is that all?" before ordering the roll call that ends at thirty-two. He is a superb front-line officer who is foremost in every hot place. He promises extra leave to anyone who can find a wounded soldier crying out in No Man's Land, a powerful inducement that shows his concern for the men under his command.

Death in Action

In the summer of 1918, during an attack, Bertinck's company occupies a crater and becomes surrounded. Two enemy soldiers with a flamethrower work closer, and if they reach the crater the men are done for. When Bertinck sees that his men cannot hit the flamethrower team because they have to keep under cover from sharp fire, he takes a rifle, crawls out of the hole, and lies propped on his elbows to take aim. He fires and is immediately hit by a bullet. Despite the wound, he lies still and aims again, shifts position, and fires once more. The hindmost of the two flamethrowers is hit and falls; the hose slips away from the other man, the fire squirts about on all sides, and the man burns. Bertinck lets the gun drop, says "Good," and slips back into the hole. He has a chest wound. After a while, a fragment smashes away his chin, and the same fragment tears open Leer's hip. Bertinck dies of his wounds.

Narrative Role and Significance

Bertinck represents the ideal of the front-line officer: competent, fair-minded, and willing to share the dangers of his men. His rise from the ranks gives him a perspective that the martinet Himmelstoss lacks, and his quiet authority contrasts with the petty tyranny of the parade-ground. His death, in a selfless act of marksmanship that saves his surrounded men from a flamethrower, is the culminating example of the kind of leadership the war destroys. He is one of the last of the old hands to fall, and his loss, coming so close to the armistice, underscores the novel's theme that the war consumes the best as indiscriminately as the rest.