- The head Englishman, a colonel captured at the Battle of Dunkirk, comes in to check on Billy.
- Edgar Derby says Billy's still alive, but dead to the world—in other words, unconscious.
- The colonel says it must be nice to be alive but feel nothing.
- The colonel then tells Derby that Derby and Billy are the only two American prisoners who haven't shaved yet.
- When the colonel sees the American prisoners with clean-shaven faces, he thinks they all seem really young: like they're in the Children's Crusade.
- The two men continue their conversation, which amounts to this: a lot of troops are being injured and killed.
- Derby and his men surrendered to the Germans to avoid being killed.