Angel Down

After an all-night march, Bagger returns to Company P with Arno and the angel hidden beneath a cape. Threading through the support camp, Bagger reads the unit’s demoralized condition as proof that Reis’s replacement has yet to arrive. Fellow soldiers greet Bagger and Arno with contempt, apparently convinced they survived Bois de Fays as cowards.

They arrive at a heavily guarded command dugout, where Bagger learns that General John J. Pershing, commander of the U.S. First Army, is inside. He hears Pershing’s enraged voice through the walls. When Pershing emerges and departs, Bagger decides to work through the proper chain of command rather than intercept him. He retrieves his red leather Bible, passes it to Arno for safekeeping, and is admitted to see Reis. Bagger feigns contempt to dismiss Arno and keep the boy safe, then descends alone.

Bagger finds Reis sitting alone in the dugout, a marked departure from his usual imperious posture. Reis greets him with slow contempt and delivers a bitter monologue about ingratitude toward men of vision, then lectures on what he labels the European Disease: a supposed pandemic of cowardice and tactical indecision that disadvantages the Allied troops.