In Our Time

Chapter III

Summary

The narrator and others are waiting in a garden. As Germans come over the garden wall, they shoot them. The soldiers look very surprised as they are shot, but they are all shot the same way.

Commentary

This blurb emphasizes the surprise with which death hits. Even though all the soldiers are in a war and die the same way, they are all surprised when it happens. This surprise corresponds, of course, to the surprise that everyone feels at death.