Kat the Awesome

Kat is the oldest member of the group forty years of age at the start of the novel, he is also the most experienced member of the group.  A Cobbler in civilian life (Shoe maker), and the primary mentor of the group. He shows his charisma by persuading the cook to allow his small squad to eat the food that was rationed for the hundred some men when only forty had arrived to eat.  He has a sixth sense for finding food that the other boys very much appreciate him for. In one incident he finds four boxes of lobster and another time he finds some geese for the Men to cook and eat.

 Kat is the most positive member of the group, and the boys generally look up to him. He leads his men by example and gets angry with them when they have a negative outlook on their disposition. Kat is a survivor.

Kat is practical and humane, in one incident he finds a man who had his thighs blown off, he was in intense pain and Kat was the one that suggested that they do a mercy killing by putting the man out of his misery rather than sit in the hospital bed for three days dyeing from a slow grueling death.  He is forced to stop from the mercy killing by the return of the other soldiers from the front.

 His death is exceptionally traumatic to Paul as it is that point in the novel where Paul gives up on life. Shrapnel from a mortar explodes wrecking Kats shin. Paul realizing that Kat is hurt tries to carry him back to camp. On the way back to camp Kat makes a small moan to which Paul urges him to hang on only to discover upon his arrival back at camp that Kat had died on the way. A piece of shrapnel that had hit him in the head. Kat had been the last member of his original group to die. After this Paul is seen as the old man as many of the new recruits are under seventeen.