Journey's End 2018

During the First World War, young Second Lieutenant Raleigh is sent to the front lines in Northern France. He requests of General Raleigh, his uncle, that he be put under the command of Captain Stanhope of C Company, a man who was a few years his senior at school, and who used to holiday with Raleigh and his sister Margaret.

Although an outstanding leader, who won the Military Cross at the Battle of Vimy Ridge, Stanhope has taken to heavy drinking to numb himself to the horrors of war. Other company officers include the kindly second-in-command, Lieutenant Osborne, an older man who is called ‘Uncle’ by his fellow officers; Trotter, also an older man of lower social class commissioned from the ranks to make up shortages; and Hibbert, whose attempts to escape the front line by complaining of eye pain are angrily rejected by Stanhope. The officers work as a close team, sitting down to a three-course dinner each evening (in practice whatever soup, tinned meat and tinned fruit the mess cook has rustled up – in contrast to the fine meals which more senior officers are shown eating behind the front). Raleigh learns his duties, making frequent inspections of the trenches, supervising the morning “stand to” (guarding the trench in case of a dawn attack) and learning the names of his men.

At any moment the Germans could launch an attack in what would come to be known as the German spring offensive. The battalion commander informs Stanhope that information from a deserter reveals that the German assault is planned for Thursday 21 March 1918. To obtain intelligence for a brigadier who is visiting for dinner, the battalion commander orders Stanhope to send two of his officers and ten men on a daytime raid across no man’s land to capture one or more German prisoners. The officers chosen are the trusted Lieutenant Osborne and Second Lieutenant Raleigh. Only four men and Raleigh return alive, with one prisoner, revealing the Germans opposite to be a unit from Württemberg.

Stanhope is absolutely devastated by Osborne’s death, and drinks heavily, culminating in a physical altercation with Raleigh.

On 21 March, all men are on duty as the shelling begins. The British soldiers can barely see or hold on to their weapons through all the dust and debris. Raleigh is severely wounded in the back. Stanhope lays him on a bed in the officers’ dugout. Ignoring urgent messages from the sergeant-major to come up to the trench and take charge, he comforts the dying man and covers him with a blanket just as Raleigh complains of being “too cold” and breathes his last breath. Stanhope emerges in shock as the artillery explodes around him.

The next day, the Germans, in gas masks, are seen surveying the captured trenches, with the bodies of the British strewn around dead and motionless. Meanwhile, back at home, Margaret finally receives a letter from her brother, sent just after his arrival at the front.