Book Three

In Ernest Hemingway's A farewell to Arms, Hemingway details the 'adventures' of Frederic Henry.  Henry is an officer among a group of ambulance drivers in the Italian army. After being injured and out of the action for a while, Henry returns to the front. However, he doesn’t stay there for long due to the Italian line breaking under an Austrian/German assault. He is ordered to drive his men and Ambulances away, however he finds that Bonello has actually invited along two engineer sergeants.  This sets up a pivotal moment in the novel.

When we first see the sergeants, they “were polite” and quite passive (170). Bonello took pity on them after they’re separated from their unit. These two sergeants don’t seem to be soldiers or brave man at all. One of them even tries to steal a clock from an abandoned house; they aren’t men of honor at all. And so, as the Austrian army looms ever closer, the Sergeants become more and more nervous. They constantly ask if they can leave, and thus, when the ambulance becomes stuck in the mud, it’s no wonder that the two of them want to leave. They are genuinely scared for their life, and believe the delay to rescue the ambulance would cause them to “be cut off” by enemy forces (177).  Because of the insubordination of these sergeants, Henry fires his pistol at the fleeing sergeants and hits one of them, while the other escapes. Bonello, despite inviting the sergeants in the first place, insist on finishing off the injured sergeant.

The purpose of this section of the text seems to be to flesh out Bonello’s character. Earlier, when Henry’s men are quartering in the abandoned hospital, Bonello cracks a joke about sleeping with the queen. Such a joke paints a picture of a hardened man’s man who doesn’t care about what he does or their consequences. However, instead of ignoring what anyone might think of him, he immediately “looked to [Henry] to see how [he] took the joke” (167).  Bonello wants the approval and praise of his fellow soldiers. So, when he has the opportunity to kill a sergeant, he jumps on the opportunity to show off. After all, he immediately asks if anyone saw him “shoot him” (177).  He loves the attention he gets from showing off like this. However, when things get hard and Aymo is killed by friendly fire, “Bonello said nothing” (185).  He realizes that his own mortality is worth more than showing off how tough he is. Because of this, Bonello slips away from the group as soon as he can. His façade of toughness and manliness wasn’t as sturdy as he may want others to believe.