The men find everything on the island strange and miserable. They have a hard time anchoring their tents, which provide little protection from the rain. Croft is frustrated. He doesn’t have enough replacements for a full platoon, and they are on labor detail instead of patrols. Croft argues with a commander at headquarters to give him an extra man and gets Roth.

Roth is disgruntled. He has a college degree, but all the Army wants, he thinks, is cannon fodder. He talks with Goldstein, who is staking out his tent. Goldstein tries to be optimistic, but Roth notes how officers are treated much better than enlisted men. Both men are from Jewish families, and both have heard antisemitic comments from other soldiers. Roth thinks of his son.

Polack talks with Minetta, who is only 20 and hates the dirt and discomfort. Minetta was known as the best dresser on his block. Croft talks with Martinez about dividing recon into two squads and making Stanley a sergeant.

A section labeled “The Time Machine” (63) shows Martinez as a young boy growing up in San Antonio. He wants to be a pilot. He reflects on the women he was with, including his wife, Rosalita. He joined the army and recalls his first combat.

In the officer’s mess, Lieutenant Hearn is irritated by the talk of Lieutenant Colonel Conn, whom he finds obnoxious. He knows it is wiser to keep his mouth shut, but he is out of patience. He thinks of Hobart, Dalleson, and Conn as bullies. Hearn is not known for getting along with people. He challenges Conn, but the General intercedes. He summons Hearn, who is his aide. Hearn hates the paradox that the officers are treated better than the men, and yet out here on the island, they are side by side. He thinks, “ten miles away men were being killed, and that had different moral demands than when men were killed three thousand miles away” (75-6). Hearn resents the General, who is mannerly and correct, brilliant, but cold.

The General scolds Hearn for talking back to Conn, and Hearn’s resentment grows as the General lectures him about how he ought to behave. The General claims Hearn is a reactionary, just as he is. He thinks he, and men like him, will have a chance at real power after the war.

A section called “Chorus” (86) shows the enlisted men in the chow line, with Red, Gallagher, Brown, and Wilson having a discussion with the cook over the food they are being served.

The General completes his pivoting maneuver and establishes his front line. There was a skirmish with a company of Japanese troops, quickly overcome. The General moves his headquarters and sets the reserve men to building a road. The General is pleased to see the new bivouac taking shape, but the men get bored and wish for combat.

Red relaxes with Wilson and Gallagher after working on the road. Red is annoyed with his bunkmate, a young new replacement called Wyman. Gallagher thinks of his wife, Mary, and of going to confession. It begins to rain, and the wind picks up. Goldstein thinks the storm makes the earth look primeval. Ridges thinks it looks like the Garden of Eden (97). The wind starts to yank tents from their stakes and blow the canvas away.

The men gather near the trucks in the motor pool and Red starts singing, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Someone asks him to sing “Show Me the Way to Go Home” (102). Toglio has a moment of wistful nostalgia. The General approaches in a jeep and tells them that trouble has started up the line.

As they drive toward the front, they pass a few corpses of Japanese soldiers decomposing in a ditch. The General reflects on his battle plans. Hearn thinks the General’s concentration is inhuman. The General arrives at the headquarters battery, finds a working telephone, and relays his orders.

Minetta wakes Roth for guard duty. Roth feels fearful and alone, and he thinks about how easily a man can be killed. He fears that something is lurking in the jungle. He thinks about his wife, Zelda, and how things hadn’t turned out as he’d hoped. He reflects, “It was just that you didn’t get everything you had hoped for when you were a kid” (117). He falls asleep and is late waking Brown, who thinks that Roth is lazy. Brown believes he does his duty, but he is tormented by thoughts of his wife being unfaithful. He hears artillery in the distance and hopes that none of the boys get hurt.

Several men from recon ride in the truck to the front lines. Red is terse with Wyman, not wanting to get attached to him. Red is very aware that he could be killed—he has seen so many men die that “he no longer had any illusions about the inviolability of his own flesh” (122). Still, despite the hard shell he has developed, he feels dread. Goldstein, Croft, Gallagher, Wilson, and Martinez are with them, and the men fall to arguing until they arrive. They disembark and then wait to be told where to go. They are ordered to drag several antitank guns to the front of the line.

They divide into groups of three. It is dark, the trail is muddy, and the guns are heavy. They are soon exhausted. When trying to push one of the guns up the side of a ravine, Wyman buckles and the gun tumbles into the ravine. Wyman is glad that Goldstein gets yelled at instead of him. Finally the men arrive. Exhausted, they fall asleep, except for Red, who is bothered by his kidneys. He tells himself that he doesn’t give a damn about anything.

Red wakes when recon is called up. Martinez leads them to the front line. He feels less terror when he is leading others. Croft is tense and impatient for combat; he hungers for the feeling he gets after he has killed a man. Croft takes a foxhole and mans the gun, which looks out to a river. He feels the mountains are watching him from the right. Croft grows more tense as the attack starts. He hears Japanese soldiers taunting him from across the river and it makes him wild. He fires his gun and calls for his men to fight. The sound of artillery overwhelms him, and Gallagher screams for it to stop. Another man screams that he is hit. Croft reloads his gun and can see the Japanese soldiers falling in the river. The Japanese withdraw. Toglio was hit in the elbow.

The Time Machine excerpt, titled “The Hunter,” turns to Sam Croft. His father Jesse describes Sam as tough and fearless, describing a time Sam tracked a deer but his father shot it first. The first time he kills a man, he is in the National Guard defending an oil company. He is told not to shoot but fires anyway. His marriage to Janey is fiery and full of quarrels. He feels filled with hatred.

Attacks continue into the next day, but the Japanese are repulsed. The General advances the front line and thinks about how to break the Toyaku line. He tells Hearn that letting men be idle or putting them to unnecessary work is immoral for a commander. Hearn is disgusted when rations of fresh meat come in and the General gives half to the officers and half to the far more numerous enlisted men. The General has Hearn construct a recreation tent for the officers. Hearn starts spending time there, but after several nights, the General comes to collect him. Hearn resents this. He has tried to break with the prejudices of the wealthy and upper class, but the General is trying to bring them out in him.

Hearn looks at the map in the General’s tent and thinks of Anopopei as “[t]he ocarina on which the General played his little tune” (172). The General lectures Hearn about political philosophy and explains that his strategy is to break down the enlisted men. He claims the Army works best when each man fears his superiors. The General wants Hearn to give up his liberal ideals about equality and admit that authoritative structures work best. The two of them play chess, and Hearn loses. Hearn thinks the General is too high up and has lost feeling for the terrified man in the foxhole. He realizes he does not like the General at all.

In the Chorus section, titled “Women,” Minetta, Polack, Brown, and Stanley are on a labor duty, digging a latrine. They debate about whether women are ever faithful.

The attacks die down, and recon rests and works. They can hear distant artillery, but it feels less threatening than the mountain range. One morning, Red, Gallagher, and Croft are returning from picking up rations when they find three Japanese soldiers in a hollow. Croft says he will throw a grenade, and then they will attack. Red hates how he feels right before combat and watches a soldier, thinking, “He could not believe that in a few seconds the soldier with the broad pleasant face was going to die” (189).

The grenade fells all four soldiers, but when Red goes to investigate, one is alive. Red’s gun jams, and he trips and falls when he tries to run. Croft takes the soldier prisoner and tells Red to leave. Croft gives the soldier a cigarette, then food and drink, then shoots him. Gallagher is shocked.

Recon returns to the rear and the men set up their bivouac. Wilson wants liquor and collects money from several of the men to buy whisky that a mess sergeant is making. Several of the men sit around drinking; at first, they become expansive, then morose. They try to make Goldstein drink with them, but he doesn’t want to. Goldstein is upset by the interaction. He tries to return to writing a cheerful letter to his wife about their future when he returns home. He feels that being in the platoon is robbing him of his confidence.

Wilson is restless and suggests they go look for souvenirs from the battle. They walk back to where the attack took place. The coconut trees look brown and withered. They see dead men who haven’t been buried. Maggots are feeding on the corpses. Martinez takes the gold teeth from one corpse but feels guilty about it. In a cave full of bodies, they find a snake and shoot it. Red looks at the bodies and reflects on how fragile a life really is. Back at the bivouac, Wyman, Ridges, and Goldstein debate on the religion of the Japanese. Ridges says he wouldn’t want to kill a Christian, and Goldstein says several thousand Japanese are Christian. Ridges says corpses look so terrible because the soul is gone.

That night, Wilson is alone on guard duty and sees a bush that he is convinced could hide a Jap. He fires on the bush with his machine gun and wakes up the men, who think they are being attacked. Croft is furious with Wilson.

The Time Machine section, titled “The Wandering Minstrel,” focuses on Red. He grew up in a mining town in Montana and went to work in the mine after his father was killed. He was desperate to leave the town and roamed the country, taking jobs here and there, traveling with other hobos, never staying long in one place. He gets a job driving trucks and finds the motion injures his kidneys. He lives for a time with a woman named Lois but doesn’t want to get married. He joins the Army when the war begins and decides it’s best not to look back.