Testament of Youth

Brittain is devastated by Roland’s death, and many of her memories from this time reflect her fragmented grief, but bit by bit, the situation becomes clearer to her. She learns from other soldiers and from his colonel more about the circumstances around Roland’s death: on a night lit by a nearly full moon, before sending men to repair some wiring in front of some new trenches, Roland ventured into No Man’s Land to examine the condition of the wire himself. During this solitary expedition, he was shot in the stomach by an enemy machine gun. Abdominal surgery was unsuccessful; pain medication enabled him to die in minimal discomfort. Before his death, Roland received last rites from a Catholic priest who “unknown to us all, had received him in the Catholic church earlier that summer” (216). Brittain learns that in his last hours, Roland mentioned to nobody that he was coming home to see his fiancée or his mother. Edward now becomes the person of whom Brittain thinks about the most, and he and Victor grieve the loss of Roland, reminding Brittain that they were friends well before she became his fiancée. 

In January 1916, at the end of her leave, Brittain returns to her living quarters in Camberwell to find that Betty has left her flowers.