Summary Part 5

Robert leaves Barbara d'Orsey's home and heads back to battle on a small train. Shortly after reaching the bath house, he is brutally raped by an unknown number of his fellow soldiers. When he returns to his room, he finally receives his lost pack, and burns his picture of Rowena as an act of charity, reasoning that it would be horrible for something so innocent to exist in such a messed up world.
Robert then moves back out to the front. The Germans begin firing shells that set everything ablaze. Robert goes to speak to Captain Leather to request that the horses be let out of the barn because if the barn is hit they will all die. Captain Leather refuses Robert's request. Once back at the barn Robert asks his friend Devlin if he would help him release the horses. Devlin contemplates whether or not he should let all the horses die or face the wrath of Captain Leather. Devlin decides to help Robert and runs out to open the gate for the horses. At that moment Captain Leather gets up from hiding beneath a table and looks out the window to see Devlin disobeying his orders. He runs out screaming at him to stop, and calls treason and traitor. Leather pulls out his gun and fires at Devlin killing him. Then he sees Robert and takes aim at him and starts firing but misses because Robert hides between the horses as they are running out. At that moment three shells land and set the barn ablaze, the building where the Captain was and other soldiers were still in, and the field where all the horses had run to ablaze. And soon everything is burning around Robert, even the horses are slowly burning alive. Robert sees Captain Leather struggling to get him, walks over and shoots him in between the eyes.
Robert runs away as he knows he will be court-martialed for disobeying orders. He finds a black horse and a black dog beside it, as he is about to ride the horse down the track he realizes there are horses in the abandoned train and frees a hundred and thirty horses and flees the area. As Robert is riding with all the horses a soldier stops him and asks him to return the horses, Robert pulls out his Webley and shoots him dead. He is a fugitive for some time before finally being caught in a barn with the horses. The soldiers surrounding Robert set the barn on fire in order to force him out. But because it had not rained for days the roof of the barn was extremely dry and lit up in seconds. Before Robert could open the barn doors the roof collapsed on him and the horses, setting them all on fire. Robert is saved but badly burned, and all the horses and the dog are killed. Robert turns down an offer of euthanasia from a nurse before returning home to Canada. He never recovers from his burns but lives for another six years before passing away in 1922.