Generals Die in Bed
Charles Yale Harrison
 This Canadian World War I narrative starts in Montreal, where an unnamed soldier of 20 years old is among those Canadian soldiers preparing to deploy confront the Germans on European soil, mainly in France and Belgium. Though the story begins with the narrator's close relationships with fellow soldiers, named Brown, Cleary, Fry, Broadbent and Anderson, and almost seductive experience of deployment, it soon shifts to scenes of the infamous World War I trenches; here, the conditions are unsanitary at best, as the soldiers are constantly exposed to lice, gigantic rats, and flesh-rotting rainfalls. The unnamed narrator is incrementally disillusioned towards the war, particularly when given no choice but to question its purpose and its socio-economic implications. While he once thought of war as glorious, the narrator is forced to reassess his own patriotic ideals as his friends begin to die; this begins with the rather banal death of Brown. Later in the text, the narrator finds himself disturbed when he bayonets a German soldier during a raid; this trauma is magnified by the narrator's subsequent camaraderie with the brother of the dead soldier. The narrator becomes further unhinged at the death of another friend; it is at this point that the narrator begins to acknowledge the horrors of war. As the plot continues, he is allowed to leave the front for a break in England, a 10 day period during which a prostitute does everything in her power to help him forget the war. However, everyday incidents –- such as a burlesque show that marginalizes the cost of war by adapting the imagery of war for public amusement –- remind the anonymous soldier of the ideological separation between the "home front" and the trenches. Upon his return to the trenches, the Canadians suffer a heavy loss when a raid on the Germans goes awry; at this point, Broadbent is the lone survivor of the narrator's friends. To sufficiently motivate the troops for another raid, a Canadian general tells a dubious tale of the Germans sinking a hospital ship; during this bloody confrontation, the narrator wounds his foot, and Broadbent dies after his leg is nearly severed from his body. Shortly thereafter, the War ends. At this point, the soldiers learn that the ship sunk by the Germans was, in fact, carrying weapons. The illumination of the truth brings with it the realization that war is a game of strategy fought between generals, and soldiers are unwitting participants.