Journey's End

This is the play that made Sherriff famous, written from his own years as a young officer, and it still sets the standard for war drama told from inside one small room. It is for anyone who wants the First World War without parades — a story about fear, class, and the lies men tell to stay standing. Read it before you read anything else about 1918.

1. 1

   Act 1

   A New Officer Comes Down the Steps

   A cramped dug-out near Saint-Quentin, March 1918, a few days before the German offensive the men expect. Hardy, the outgoing commander, fools with a scarf, a sock and a revolver as he hands over to the new officer, swapping complaints with Lieutenant Osborne about men standing in water, rats, and the smell of bacon. Osborne, a middle-aged former schoolmaster the men call 'Uncle', waits for the new captain. He is Second Lieutenant Raleigh, about eighteen, straight from school with cricket fame behind him, who has pulled strings to join C Company because Captain Stanhope is his friend and hero — and is engaged to Raleigh's sister. Raleigh tells Osborne that at school Stanhope was 'skipper of rugby' and won the Military Cross, that their fathers know each other, and that he used to spend holidays at Stanhope's home. Osborne gently warns him that Stanhope has changed; Raleigh does not understand. Hardy is blunter: Stanhope 'drinks like a fish', and he will resent Raleigh's arrival. Osborne defends Stanhope as the finest officer he has served with, saying the drinking is the only thing that keeps him going. Trotter, a stout former gardener promoted from the ranks, arrives complaining of the cold and snipers, crossing off hours on a paper dial — 'Another little blob...'. Then Stanhope himself, gaunt and pale at twenty-one after three years of command, asks how he looks — 'frightened to death' — and goes cold when he sees Raleigh. Alone with Osborne, he confesses: 'I hate and loathe it all.' He cannot bear leave, cannot bear the look in the eyes of the girl he loves, Raleigh's sister Margaret, whom Raleigh would tell he had gone west. 'She doesn't know that if I went up those steps into the front line—without being doped with whisky—I'd go mad with fright.' If Raleigh writes home about the drinking, Stanhope will censor his letters like all the others. Then the Colonel arrives: a raid tomorrow, to take a prisoner. Stanhope picks Osborne and Raleigh.

2. 2

   Act 2

   Soup, Letters, and a Promise

   Dinner in the dug-out: Mason, the company cook, serves yellow soup and apricots that turn out to be apples, and the officers joke over the small comforts while he struggles to feed them. Raleigh, at his first dinner, is awkward and says little; Stanhope is cold. When Raleigh mentions the raid, Stanhope snaps that he has not asked him to go on it yet — then tells him he will be in the raiding party with Osborne. Raleigh is thrilled at being chosen; Stanhope says only that the raid is 'to find out what the Germans know about the attack'. Preparing for bed, Osborne and Raleigh talk of home: Osborne of his wife and the garden he is making, Raleigh of his mother and the rugby and cricket he played with Stanhope. 'I hope we shall be friends', Osborne says, and turns the boy's mind from the raid to the war's end. What will Raleigh do after? Go back to school, Raleigh says. 'I expect I shall go back to school, too', smiles the schoolmaster. Six days later — the raid now set — Osborne reads Alice's Adventures in Wonderland aloud to calm Raleigh's nerves, the Mock Turtle's 'beautiful soup', the Walrus talking of 'shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—Of cabbages—and kings'. Raleigh loved the book as a child. Trotter has drawn a plan of the German trench; he and Osborne go over the timing and the wire. Stanhope protests to the Colonel that Raleigh is too inexperienced for this; the Colonel overrules him, and Stanhope must give the orders. Alone after, he tells Osborne bitterly that the raid is a pointless waste of life, driven by headquarters' vanity. The Division wants a prisoner 'with a German officer's cap and a map'. The party goes out at 10:20 pm behind a smoke barrage. Before it leaves, Osborne and Stanhope share a quiet moment, remembering a leave in the Lake District. 'It was a lovely place. I'd like to go back there one day', says Osborne. 'We will. We'll go back together after the war', Stanhope answers. Rifle grenades and machine-gun fire are heard offstage.

3. 3

   Act 3

   Gone West

   Raleigh comes back with a captured German soldier. Osborne does not. 'Mr Osborne's gone west, sir', the Sergeant Major reports, and Stanhope takes Osborne's watch and ring to send to his wife. He questions the prisoner through the Sergeant, orders him taken away, then sits alone with two censored letters: Osborne's to his wife, Raleigh's to his sister. He reads Raleigh's and finds it praises him — Stanhope 'is the finest officer in the battalion', the men 'love him'. Ashamed, he says 'I'm going to write to... his sister'. The Colonel congratulates him on the raid and asks after the prisoner; Stanhope reports Osborne's death, and the Colonel answers, 'Well, we got what we wanted'. Alone with Trotter, Stanhope cannot understand why Raleigh wrote kindly about him, and says he will ask Raleigh to dinner. Trotter warns him the boy is 'a bit cut up' about Osborne. At dinner, Raleigh refuses to eat and stays apart, grieving. Stanhope loses his temper: don't 'be a fool' — 'You're going to stay and have dinner with us tonight'. The next day the officers discuss the attack expected at dawn on Thursday. The Colonel orders the company to hold the line; no retreat. Raleigh, unable to understand how Stanhope bears it, is told: 'It's a big effort, Raleigh' — 'You learn — you get hardened to it'. Trotter learns he will take over if anything happens to Stanhope, and says he does not want the responsibility; he would rather go home. The telephone confirms the attack comes at dawn; Stanhope orders the men to stand to. The Sergeant-Major brings worse news: Mason, the cook, killed by a shell bringing up food. 'Poor old Mason', says Stanhope. As the bombardment builds, Trotter marks his calendar — 'It's the last day of March. I've got to cross it off.'

4. 4

   Act 4

   Journey's End

   The German attack opens with a barrage. The telephone line is cut; the Sergeant Major brings casualty reports; Stanhope orders the men to hold the trench. Raleigh is hit by a shell fragment in the back while he is in the trench and is carried down into the dug-out on a stretcher. The Colonel telephones for news; Stanhope reports the attack is being held and that Raleigh is dying. The Colonel says he will come down; Stanhope says there is no need. Raleigh, paralysed, asks Stanhope to stay with him. 'I'm going to stay here, boy, till you're gone', Stanhope tells him, bringing a blanket and water. Raleigh says 'It's all — it's all —' and dies. Stanhope goes back up to the trench. A German shell or bullet — the play leaves it unclear — and the last scene shows Trotter taking command, the company still holding the line. The whine of a shell comes nearer and nearer; there is a deafening crash as it hits the roof of the dug-out; the timbers collapse, the lights go out, and the dug-out is buried in darkness.

• CCaptain StanhopeTwenty-one, three years in command, gaunt and pale, holding himself together with whisky he calls being 'doped'. He dreads Raleigh's arrival, then keeps vigil as the boy dies — and walks back into the fire.
• SSecond Lieutenant RaleighEighteen, fresh from school, cricket hero, who pulled strings to serve under his friend and hero Stanhope. He survives a pointless raid only to be cut down by a shell in the final attack.
• LLieutenant OsborneThe calm middle-aged schoolmaster the men call 'Uncle', Stanhope's second-in-command and the dug-out's conscience. He leads the raid, reads Alice to calm a frightened boy, and never comes back.
• SSecond Lieutenant TrotterA stout, cheerful former gardener promoted from the ranks, crossing off hours on a paper dial. He grieves without ceremony, refuses the command he is promised, and takes it anyway at the end.
• HHardyThe outgoing company commander, fooling with a scarf, a sock and a revolver as he hands over. He is the first to say plainly that Stanhope 'drinks like a fish'.
• MMasonThe company cook, serving yellow soup and apples masquerading as apricots, comic relief under fire. A shell kills him while he is bringing up food.
• TThe ColonelBrigade's voice in the dug-out: he orders the raid for a prisoner 'with a German officer's cap and a map', overrules Stanhope on Raleigh, and accepts Osborne's death with 'Well, we got what we wanted'.

The dug-out

The whisky bottle

Trotter's dial and calendar

Osborne's watch

The picture of Raleigh's sister

The ending refuses a clean death for its hero. Stanhope survives Raleigh, walks back up into the trench, and is killed — by shell or bullet, the play will not say which — offstage, without ceremony. That vagueness is the point: after three years, his death is not even worth a specific cause. What the play chooses to show instead is the aftermath: Trotter, the gardener who did not want the responsibility, taking command; the company still holding the line; and then the shell that finds the dug-out itself, the timbers collapsing, the lights going out, the world of the play buried in darkness. One reading is that the dug-out's destruction is the war's final word — no sanctuary, no witness, just erasure. Another is that it is mercy: the men are spared the sight of what comes, and the audience is spared the lie of survival. Either way, the title lands. The journey ends not with glory or even with a body, but with a room going dark — the ordinary furniture of a few men's courage, wiped out mid-sentence.

1. 1.Stanhope censors Raleigh's letters expecting condemnation and finds praise instead. What does the letter scene say about shame, and why does it move him to write to Raleigh's sister rather than to Raleigh himself?

Anyone who wants the First World War told from inside one small room rather than across a battlefield. Readers of war fiction, drama students, and anyone interested in how men hold together under command they did not choose.

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