noon
Lieutenant Kretching , blond , dull and phlegmatic , introduced Anthony ponderously to the problems of attention , right face , about face , and at ease . His principal defect was his forgetfulness . He often kept the company straining and aching at attention for five minutes while he stood out in front and explained a new movement -- as a result only the men in the centre knew what it was all about -- those on both flanks had been too emphatically impressed with the necessity of staring straight ahead . The drill continued until noon . It consisted of stressing a succession of infinitely remote details , and though Anthony perceived that this was consistent with the logic of war , it none the less irritated him . That the same faulty blood-pressure which would have been indecent in an officer did not interfere with the duties of a private was a preposterous incongruity . Sometimes , after listening to a sustained invective concerned with a dull and , on the face of it , absurd subject known as military `` courtesy , '' he suspected that the dim purpose of the war was to let the regular army officers -- men with the mentality and aspirations of schoolboys -- have their fling with some real slaughter .