When the character of Hibbert attempts to leave, Stanhope threatens to shoot him ‘accidentally’ to spare him the shame of being shot as a deserter. “I swear I'll never go in those trenches again! Shoot!” this is a very good example of dramatic tension in the play, as the audience is left in suspense to see if Stanhope actually does shoot him. He counts down "10…5", the anticipation is building and finally reaches its peak, until Stanhope congratulates Hibbert "Good man, Hibbert. I liked the way that you stuck that". In this scene R.C Sheriff lets his audience see what he thought of deserters. It is very thrilling, yet at the same time, it is very emotive. The audience in 1928 would have recognised Hibbert as a deserter and their pity for him would be reduced, yet at the same time they would possibly have sympathy, as they would now realise what war has done to Hibbert, and he can't take any more waiting to see if he will die, and he is even prepared to be shot rather than go "over the top" and risk being killed by the Germans. This shows how desperate the soldiers were to escape the war and how terrible it was for them if they’d rather die than go out into the warfare.
Another dramatically tense moment in the play is when Osborne and Raleigh have been chosen to go "over the top" to raid the German trench for a prisoner. Raleigh as usual is in high spirits and is very excited about the attack. Osborne however is more understanding to the situation and does not underestimate the task ahead. He leaves his ring behind "…in case anything should happen" so that Stanhope can pass it on to his wife. The audience would feel very uneasy now realising the true danger that the men face and the fact that they might not return. It also shows that the men are nervous by their idle conversation about very trivial things:
"D'you like coffee better than tea" "I do for breakfast".
The audience has already learned that the operation is very dangerous as Stanhope told the Colonel "The Boche are sitting over there with a dozen machine guns trained on that hole- waiting for our fellows to come" so we fear for the safety of Osborne and Raleigh, and we wait in anticipation to see if they survive. When the party does arrive back, we are left in more suspense to see if both Raleigh and Osborne are safe. The Colonel asks lots of questions to the German boy to keep us interested until eventually we find out that Raleigh is back safely but Osborne has been killed. In this scene we see how valuable lives and people’s family and friends are killed without good reason. We also see how unprepared the young soldiers were for the experience of war.
The peaks of suspense come just before the attacks, such as on pages 69 - 76 where Raleigh and Osborne are about to go 'over the top' on their mission to "pounce on the first Boche" and "bundle him out" . On page 72 Osborne quotes from 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' again, once more illustrating that there was no considerable point to their mission. "Now we're off! Quick, let's talk about pigs!" shows how the soldiers were often so overwhelmed by the death and destruction that they switched off and found comfort in talking about simple things with no reason, such as in this case with pigs, and worms on page 42: "I expect that's the one thing that worms dread." It is dialogues like this example that show to the audience how the Soldiers put up the continual exposure to battle and cruel elements, and how they survived without going mad.
The way that the audience get to know and understand the characters before they are killed is very effective. It portrays the realism that experienced men such as Stanhope, who had been fighting in the trenches for a long time, would often have watched their entire friends and comrades die. On page 27 Stanhope tells Osborne how "there is not a man left who was here when I came." This brings home the experiences of war to the people back at home.
Sheriff along with other war poets such as Wilfred Owen, was responsible for the people back at home understanding what terrible things were happening in the trenches. Sheriff conveys his message in a very dramatic and effective way that really brings home the experience of the war. He made sure the people back at home understood that war was dangerous and that the soldiers were risking their lives just being in the trenches.
