Rifleman Dodd

Trapped behind enemy lines, Dodd has one overriding purpose: to return to his regiment. He’s willing to suffer any torment to achieve his single-minded goal. Dodd repeatedly faces difficulties that, without fail, he resolves by choosing the option most likely to advance him toward the British lines and a reunion with his company section. Dodd’s training teaches him to focus on the job at hand. In this case, his principal task is to evade the enemy: “Military instinct called upon him to find a way round—that was the earliest tactical lesson the regiment had taught him” (17). Exposure to the elements, gnawing hunger, constant tension, and exhaustion plague Dodd during his months on his own. Not once, though, does he consider any option beyond finding his way back to his countrymen: “[I]t was his duty to push on” (24). Dodd’s deep sense of purpose gives him a tremendous capacity to endure.

Also grimly determined, despite hunger and lack of equipment, are the soldiers of the French army. Like Dodd, they have a purpose and a sense of loyalty and duty to the goal of conquest in the name of Emperor Napoleon. Unlike the