Tommo and Charlie know “Nipper” from home, and he ends up in the same company as them in the war. He has a slightly cruel yet jovial streak, but he is a comforting presence nonetheless thanks to his familiarity. He is eventually killed in a gas attack, which Tommo narrowly survives.
Nipper Martin Quotes in Private Peaceful
The Private Peaceful quotes below are all either spoken by Nipper Martin or refer to Nipper Martin . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Note: all page numbers and citation info for the quotes below refer to the HarperCollins edition of Private Peaceful published in 2003.
Chapter 9
Quotes
We had a brew up with our prisoner in the dugout before they came for him. He smoked a cigarette Pete had given him. He’d stopped shaking now, but his eyes still held their fear. We had nothing to say to one another until the moment he got up to leave. “Danke,” he said. “Danke sehr.”
“Funny that,” Nipper said when he’d gone. “Seeing him standing there with not a stitch on. Take off our uniforms and you can hardly tell the difference, can you? Not a bad bloke, for a Fritz that is.”
Related Characters:
Thomas “Tommo” Peaceful (speaker), Nipper Martin , Pete Bovey
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Private Peaceful LitChart as a printable PDF.
Nipper Martin Character Timeline in Private Peaceful
The timeline below shows where the character Nipper Martin appears in Private Peaceful. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 8: Fourteen Minutes Past Two
...Plain in England, where they are reunited with a few familiar faces from their village: Nipper Martin (a “little fellow” who was a turnip farmer), Pete Bovey (a well-built thatcher and...
(full context)
Chapter 9: A Minute Past Three
Tommo’s turn for patrol comes, and he is slated to go with Charlie, Nipper Martin, Pete, Little Les, and Captain “Wilkie” Wilkes. Tommo finds he is “not so much...
(full context)
...he is taken away. They don’t speak, but as he leaves, he thanks the men. Nipper remarks how strange it was to see the man “with not a stitch on,” because...
(full context)
Chapter 11: Nearly Four O’Clock
...got off lightly, and is dismissed from the hospital, but as he leaves he sees Nipper Martin’s body lying on the floor, along with countless other men.
(full context)