Act 1: Arrival in the Trenches
The Opening of the Play
Act 1 of Journey’s End establishes everything the audience needs to know: the setting, the characters, and the central tensions that will drive the drama. The curtain rises on a dugout in the British trenches near Saint-Quentin, March 1918. Captain Hardy is handing over the position to Osborne, and through their conversation we learn about the company, its commander Stanhope, and the German attack that everyone knows is coming.
Sherriff uses this handover scene as a form of exposition. Rather than telling the audience directly what has happened, he lets the characters reveal it through natural conversation. Hardy’s casual gossip about Stanhope’s drinking, Osborne’s loyal defence of his captain, and the details about trench routines all feel like real speech — not staged information. This naturalistic approach is one of the play’s greatest strengths.
Before Stanhope appears on stage, Hardy tells Osborne that he drinks constantly: “I never did see a youngster put away the whisky he does.” This prepares the audience to judge Stanhope harshly — but Osborne immediately defends him, creating a tension between reputation and reality that runs through the entire play.
Stanhope — The Damaged Leader
Stanhope is the company commander, just twenty-one years old, and he has been at the front for three years without a break. He is the longest-serving officer in the battalion. His alcoholism is an open secret — Hardy jokes about it, and Osborne acknowledges it — but his men respect him because he still performs his duties with fierce dedication.
When Stanhope finally appears, he is tense, irritable, and immediately reaches for the whisky. His key Act 1 line captures the desperate necessity of the habit: “She doesn’t know that if I went up those steps into the front line — without being doped with whiskey — I’d go mad with fright.” This tells us that Stanhope is self-aware — he knows he is damaged — but sees alcohol as his only means of functioning. The whisky is not a luxury; it is survival. Sherriff shows that the war has pushed this young man beyond his limits, and the prospect of facing the front line sober is, for Stanhope, unthinkable.
Stanhope’s reaction to Raleigh’s arrival is not pleasure but anxiety. He is terrified that Raleigh will write home and tell his sister — Stanhope’s fiancée, Madge — about his drinking and deterioration. He confides his fear to Osborne, revealing how precarious his grip on composure has become. He has maintained a facade of competence for three years, and Raleigh’s innocent admiration threatens to expose the truth. Note: Stanhope’s explosive outburst “To forget, you little fool — to forget! … You think there’s no limit to what a man can bear?” belongs to Act 3 Scene 2, after Osborne’s death — not Act 1.
Stanhope’s plan to censor Raleigh’s letters shows how desperate he is to control his image. It also creates dramatic irony: the audience knows that Raleigh’s letter, when it finally comes, will be full of admiration, not criticism. Stanhope’s fear is unfounded — but the fact that he cannot see this tells us how profoundly the war has distorted his thinking.
Raleigh — The Innocent Newcomer
Second Lieutenant Raleigh is fresh from England, young, enthusiastic, and eager to serve under Stanhope, whom he hero-worships from school. He used his connections (“uncle” in the military) to get posted to Stanhope’s company. Raleigh represents the naïve idealism that many young men brought to the war — and that the trenches would destroy.
Raleigh’s line “I could have cheered” — about the moment he was told to report to Stanhope’s company — reveals his boyish excitement at being posted near Stanhope. He treats the war like a school adventure. The gap between Raleigh’s enthusiasm and Stanhope’s exhaustion creates one of the play’s central dramatic tensions. Sherriff uses Raleigh as a mirror: through Raleigh’s eyes, we see what Stanhope once was before the war changed him.
Raleigh hero-worships Stanhope from school: in his letter home, he calls him “the finest officer in the battalion — the men simply love him.” Meanwhile, Stanhope’s closest confidant is Osborne — it is Stanhope who, in Act 3 Scene 2 (after Osborne’s death), cries out “the one man I could trust — my best friend — the one man I could talk to as man to man — who understood everything.” These are two separate quotes by different characters in different acts. Stanhope sees Raleigh as a threat who might expose his deterioration — a contrast between past innocence and present damage that drives the play’s emotional core.
Osborne — “Uncle”
Lieutenant Osborne is the oldest officer in the company, a former schoolmaster, and universally known as “uncle.” He is calm, kind, and steady — the emotional anchor of the group. While Stanhope leads through fierce willpower and Raleigh through naïve enthusiasm, Osborne leads through quiet decency. He reads Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland before the raid, a detail that humanises him and makes his death all the more devastating.
Osborne’s role in Act 1 is crucial. He defends Stanhope to Hardy, reassures Raleigh, and gently manages the tension between them. He is Stanhope’s confidant — the only person Stanhope trusts. Osborne keeps the small routines going and makes the dugout feel almost homely, yet beneath his calm exterior, there are hints of strain. Sherriff uses Osborne to show that even the most composed men are carrying unbearable weight.
The entire play takes place in a single dugout. Sherriff’s stage directions describe a cramped space with earth walls, a table, and candlelight. The dugout functions as a microcosm of the war: the officers are trapped, unable to leave, forced to wait for an attack they know is coming. The confined space intensifies every relationship and every conflict.
The sounds of war — distant shelling, rifle fire, the rumble of artillery — are heard offstage but never seen. This technique keeps the violence just out of sight, making it more menacing. The audience, like the characters, can only listen and wait. Sherriff’s decision to keep all action within the dugout was radical for 1928 and reflects the real experience of officers, who spent far more time waiting than fighting.
Dramatic Techniques in Act 1
Act 1 establishes the play’s distinctive dramatic style. The dialogue is natural and understated — characters talk about food, earwig races, and bed arrangements rather than grand themes. Yet beneath this ordinary conversation, Sherriff layers fear, tension, and psychological complexity. The technique of understatement is central to the play. When Hardy says a shelled dugout “came down in the men’s tea” and that the men “were frightfully annoyed,” the gap between his cheerful tone and the horror he describes creates a powerful emotional effect.