No Mans Land

In chapter 9, Paul returns from leave to the front and finds himself rusty to the life of a soldier. when he returns, he volunteers to scout ahead, but while crawling in the dark loses his sense of direction. he ends up panicking and crawling many different ways, only to turn around again. After a short while he jumps into a hole in no mans land to wait out an offensive. During the offensive however, a french man jumps into the same pit as him, who he then stabs in fear of himself being stabbed. the soldier bleeds out slowly, and Paul grows paranoid as he watches. He grows increasingly insane as time goes on to the point where he talks to the mans lifeless corpse. This shows what effects the fear of death and guilt can have on the human mind. while Paul is having a mental breakdown in what he thinks his grave will be, the battle above shifts back and forth. He is nearly hit by his own artillery, he has to wait until the fighting has died down before he can retreat to his friendly trenches. This displays how the field between trenches got the name no mans land.