Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary

Aldred leaves Ita Jima for Kure, a waterfront village near Hiroshima. Traveling with Brian Talbot, his assigned escort while in the area, Aldred observes his surroundings. The two gentlemen discuss home and settling down after the War. Arriving in Kure, Aldred meets the Driscoll family. The parents are pretentious and the children subdued in their presence. The father, Barry Driscoll, is mean-spirited and overbearing; Melba, wife to Barry, gives the first appearance of being the power behind the man. Benedict is a twenty-year old wunderkind who is dying. Helen, at sixteen, is possessed of maturity beyond her years. She has spent her childhood loving and caring for an ill sibling for whom neither parent has time or understanding. Soon after his arrival, Aldred is witness to Barry Driscoll's verbal chastisement of a servant, reinforcing an opinion of the elder Driscoll that...