Private Peaceful: Chapter 12 Summary & Analysis

Tommo realizes that there are only “sixty-five minutes to go” and tries to decide how to live them. He decides nothing will do, because it has already been decided that “Private Peaceful will die, will be shot for cowardice,” and henceforth there is no point in anything else. Tommo doesn’t know where it will happen, but he wants it to be somewhere “where there is sky and clouds and tress, and birds. It will be easier if there are birds.”

Back in battle, Tommo wakes “to the distant shriek of shells.” He realizes he is not dead after all. He thinks he is looking at the dark sky, but then realizes that he is buried in earth, and screams. Suddenly he hears Charlie’s distant voice, and then people start digging and manage to pull him free. Tommo finds himself in a dugout with his fellow soldiers. Many of their company have been killed by the same shell that injured Tommo. Tommo is shaking and “weak as a kitten.” Charlie tells him to be still, because he’s lost a lot of blood.

Pete tells everyone that the Germans have got them completely surrounded, and that “all hell’s broken loose.” Even sticking a head out of the top of the dugout would make you “a dead man.” They decide that they are stuck in the dugout for now, until Sergeant Hanley declares that they will under no circumstances “stay put.” He orders all of the men to leave the dugout and attack the German trenches instead. Everyone knows this is a suicidal order. Tommo concernedly whispers to Charlie that he won’t be able to stand up because he is too injured, and Charlie promises him that he will stay with Tommo “no matter what.”

Hanley orders everyone to move out of the dugout, and everyone hesitates. Charlie tells Hanley what everyone is thinking: that there is “no point in going out there and getting ourselves killed for nothing, is there, Sergeant?” Hanley asks Charlie whether he is disobeying his order, and starts “ranting like a man demented.” He tells Charlie that if he disobeys him, Charlie will be sent to “the firing squad” and executed. Charlie tells him that he understands, but he can’t leave Tommo behind. Hanley calls him a “miserable little worm,” and threatens to kill him there and then. Instead, he turns away and orders the men to leave the dugout. Unwillingly, each man goes over the top. Pete tries to convince Charlie to join them, but Charlie says that he meant what he said—he is going to stay with Tommo.

Tommo drifts in and out of consciousness in the dugout. At one point, he wakes up to Charlie asking him to promise that Tommo will “look after things” for him if things go badly. He wants Tommo to take care of Molly and the family. Charlie also gives Tommo his watch, telling him to take care of it, and then reassures Tommo that he can go back to sleep.

Sergeant Hanley returns to the dugout, but barely any of the other soldiers do. Hanley sits glaring at Charlie with “cold hate in his eyes.” Eventually he decides it is time for them to leave. Charlie carries Tommo the whole way back to the trenches.

When Tommo is placed on a stretcher at the trenches, he looks up to see Charlie being arrested on the spot. After this, he says, everything “happened so fast.” Tommo is not allowed to see Charlie for another six weeks, by which time Charlie has already been sentenced to death.

Tommo is finally allowed to see Charlie on the day before his execution, but only for twenty minutes. The guard outside apologizes to Tommo for this. Charlie is being held at another camp, not far away, in a stable. He is thrilled to see Tommo. He reads Tommo a letter he has received from Molly all about their baby (Little Tommo). Molly and the family have no idea about Charlie’s impending death. Charlie wasn’t allowed to write to them until today, and they will receive an official army telegram before they receive Charlie’s letter. Charlie makes Tommo promise to tell them what really happened, “how it really was.” He says all he cares about now is that they don’t think he was a coward.

Charlie describes his court martial to Tommo. Charlie tried to tell the judges the truth, but they would only listen to the word of Sergeant Hanley. He claims that “they knew [he] was right, but it made no difference,” because “they’d made up their minds [that Charlie] was guilty before they even sat down.” Charlie wasn’t allowed a witness, because the only possible candidate left alive was Tommo. Given that Tommo was Charlie’s brother, they felt this to be too biased. The only other person present was therefore Sergeant Hanley, and Charlie was completely ignored. The whole court martial took “less than an hour.” One of the brigadiers concluded by telling Charlie that he was “a worthless man.”

Charlie tries to be optimistic about his fate, reminding Tommo that the thought of death is “no more than [they] were facing every day in the trenches.” Tommo and Charlie instead start talking about their home, but Charlie can’t bring himself to talk about their family, as he will get too upset if he does. He doesn’t want to cry. Tommo promises Charlie again that he will look after them when the war is over, and that he will give the golden watch to Little Tommo, the baby, as a memento of his father.

Tommo finally brings himself to tell Charlie about the guilt he feels for their father’s death. Charlie assures Tommo that it “was the tree that killed Father, Tommo, not you,” that it is “all nonsense” and not Tommo’s fault in the slightest.

Finally, in their remaining minutes, Tommo assures Charlie that he is not worthless. Then the boys start singing “Oranges and Lemons” together, singing “it out loud so that the whole world can hear.” They laugh, and cry “tears of celebration” instead of sadness. Charlie assures Tommo that come his execution, he will be singing “Oranges and Lemons” rather than the national anthem or any hymn: “for Big Joe, for all of us.” Tommo is then called away.

When Tommo returns to camp he expects sympathy, but instead finds people smiling, because Sergeant Hanley has been killed. Unfortunately, the news comes too late to help Charlie, but Tommo describes it as a “small consolation.” After the initial news, the regiment becomes subdued again as they think about Charlie’s impending fate.

Tommo is stationed at an empty farmhouse close to where they are keeping Charlie. Everyone at the camp tries to support him in the face of Charlie’s death, even the NCOs and officers, but no one can do anything to help. Tommo doesn’t want company, and even sends the padre (the military chaplain) away. Instead, he has come to an empty barn to spend the night thinking about Charlie, and when the time of his execution arrives, Tommo will “go outside, and [he] will look up at the sky because [he knows] Charlie will be doing the same as they take him out.” It is a way for them to be together in Charlie’s final moments.