Chapter XIII Summary

The world was in the throes of war. Chips, like many others, at first did not feel the fighting would amount to much. He was wrong but, unlike many others, admitted it. In 1915, as conflicts escalated, Chips would sit in the chapel every Sunday evening and listen to Chatteris read off the names of former students who had been killed in battle that week. Chips always thought how they were just names to Chatteris, but they were faces, real boys to him. The Battle of Somme of 1916, sadly yielded the names of 23 former students one Sunday evening.

Headmaster Chatteris visited Chips one evening. Chatteris looked pale and drawn. He revealed to Chips that he was in ill health and the toll that the stress he faced on a daily basis was taking on him. Many of the teachers that Ralston had...