Three Day Road: Ntawi Nipahiwewak: Raiding Party Summary & Analysis

In the following days, rumors hit the soldiers that a sentry had fallen asleep while on duty the night of the raid. He was taken behind the line and shot by a firing squad. Rumors also spread about new German weapons “filled with poison gas that fall like a plague from the heavens.” Xavier, Elijah, and the others are forced to work long hours wearing gas hoods over their faces. The hoods are soaked in chemicals to “neutralize the gas,” and it gives Xavier a headache. He feels like the hood will “smother” him.

After Xavier and Elijah’s “first round in the line,” they are sent to reserve to rest. Thompson says the round was relatively “quiet”—only seven casualties. Xavier wonders if the executed sentry is counted in that number, but he doesn’t ask. They are billeted with Grey Eyes, who “is a prisoner of the medicine they call morphine,” and Elijah is “fascinated” by his addiction. The others in the unit “are drawn to Elijah” and “his endless stories,” but Xavier is “a brown ghost.”

Back on the line, Elijah and Xavier are given sentry duty the first night. Xavier watches as the sun rises over ”no man’s land.” The ground is charred and blown to pieces and “so empty of vegetation” that it is “impossible to imagine anything once grew.” The next night, Thompson wakes Elijah and Xavier in their hole. “Let’s go,” he says, leading them into a trench where McCaan and Graves wait.

Thompson says little and expects them to follow his lead. He “is very much an Indian this way,” Xavier thinks. He blackens his face with charcoal and leads them out of the trench. Everyone knows a group of soldiers went into “no man’s land” yesterday and never returned. “We’re going over the top,” Elijah says excitedly in Cree. “We’re going Fritz hunting in the craters.”

They move across ”no man’s land,” jumping from crater to crater, when a flare lights up the sky. Xavier can make out the color of Canadian uniforms in a nearby crater. The men are injured, and Sean Patrick and McCaan help the men get back to the trenches. Suddenly, the gunfire and bombing intensify. “They’ve got us just about pinned,” Thompson says. “Got to get out of here.” They run for another crater and hide among the dead bodies. The gunfire soon lets up. “The good news, as you can tell, gentlemen,” Thompson says, “is that the bombardment is done […]. I vote that we find more agreeable accommodations before it’s too late.”

Xavier, Elijah, and Thompson find a crater that does not contain corpses, and they “lie still beside one another.” An airplane flies above; it is a Canadian observation plane. Once it is dark, Thompson leads them out of the crater and back toward the trenches. “I’ve got a feeling they’ll be coming this way soon enough to look around,” Thompson says as he stops. “If you hear them scrounging about,” he says to Xavier and Elijah as he hands them two Mills bombs, “pull the pins and throw these in.” 

Xavier, Elijah, and Thompson hide for nearly a half hour before the Germans approach. They throw the bombs together and the ground shakes. “Let’s go boys,” Thompson says. “He kills with such ease,” Xavier thinks. As Xavier heads back to his hole to rest, he thinks about how he has changed. “I have killed someone now,” he says to himself. The next day, Thompson finds Elijah and Xavier in their hole. “What do you think of the last days, Whiskeyjack?” Thompson asks Elijah. “It’s in my blood,” Elijah answers.