Journey's End - Plot Summary - Act III - Scene 2

Scene 2

Trotter, Stanhope and Hibbert drink and talk about women. They all appear to be enjoying themselves until Hibbert is annoyed when Stanhope tells him to go to bed, and he tells Stanhope to go to bed instead, then Stanhope suddenly becomes angry and begins to shout at him and tells him to clear off and get out.

Stanhope also becomes angry at Raleigh, who did not eat with the officers that night but preferred to eat with men below his rank. Stanhope is offended by this and Raleigh eventually admits that he feels he cannot eat while he thinks that Osborne is dead and his body is in No Man's Land. Stanhope is angry because Raleigh had seemed to imply that he didn't care about Osborne's death because he was eating and drinking. Stanhope yells at Raleigh that he drinks to cope with the fact that Osborne died, to forget. Stanhope asks to be left alone and angrily tells Raleigh to leave.