Major Glendinning: heartless and spiteful
Heartless
Major Glendinning - Alec and Jerry’s commander - is a ruthless, heartless character. He bears a striking similarity to Alicia Moore.
Through Major Glendinning’s harsh language as he voices disgust at his men - “Illiterate peasants, rascals and schoolboys” – Johnston shows his strong feeling that they are inferior to him.
His authoritative language - declaring that there be “no flaw in the machinery” and that he “never asked for a bunch of damn bog Irish” - shows that he has no care for his men as people but only as cogs in a war “machine”.
This dehumanising attitude means that when Alec approaches Glendinning about securing compassionate leave for Jerry, he has no sympathy.
He generalises Jerry’s experience asking Alec “Have you considered how many men in the British Expeditionary Forces have fathers, brothers, sons, cousins missing, wounded, dead?”
Glendinning is incapable of empathiseShow understanding of how someone else feels. with men who he sees as no better than animals.
When Alec is reluctant to command Jerry’s firing squad, he insensitively accuses him of “making a mountain out of molehill”. This too shows a shockingly heartless lack of compassion.
Spiteful
As well as being ruthless and heartless in his lack of compassionUnderstanding and appreciation of the pain and suffering of others., Major Glendinning is spiteful and deliberately cruel in his treatment of the men. Here again we see parallels with Alec’s mother.
Right from his first interactions with Alec he criticises the men as being “the biggest bunch of incompetents I have come across in my life”.
He refuses to allow Jerry to transfer to look after the horses - even though it would make him happy, be better for the horses and would be of no harm to anyone. At times he seems to relish being spiteful for the sake of it.
His most deliberate act of cruelty comes however when he orders Alec to command the firing squad that will execute his friend for desertion.
His delivery is matter of fact, with no softening warning, “Private Crowe has been sentenced to death. You will command the firing squad at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
This conveys a lack of sensitivity, and his choice of Alec to command the firing squad seems deliberately spiteful and cruel.
Even at this dreadful time Alec says, “His face was indifferent to me”, thereby showing Glendinning’s dismissive cruelty.
