David Burns

• At dinner, a "thin, yellow-skinned" man named Burns starts to vomit. He is removed and taken to his room by the nurses, or VADs. Rivers goes to visit Burns, who is extremely thin and has not been able to eat since he arrived. In the war, Burns was thrown into the air by a shell and landed face first in the gas-filled stomach of a German corpse. When he awoke, he realized that his nose and mouth were filled with rotting flesh; he has not been able to eat since. Rivers reflects that Burns's suffering has been without dignity.
• Burns' first relapse: Ch4: Burns looks outside the window. It is pouring rain, but he feels the need to go out, so he puts on his coat and boards a bus heading away from the city. He rides as far into the Scottish countryside as the bus will take him, uncertain of where to go. He stumbles along a field and comes across a tree that feels slimy. When he looks up, he sees that dead animals are hanging from all the branches. He starts to run, but then he turns around to face his fear.
• BFR Chapter 4 continued: One by one, he unties the animals and arranges them in a circle around the tree. Then he removes his clothes and lies down naked in the middle of the circle. He feels that, despite the rain and the cold, this is the right place. Later, he returns to the hospital to the patience and comfort of Dr. Rivers.
• CH15: Rivers travels to Burns's seaside house in Suffolk to spend a few days there. He thinks Burns sent for him so that he can meet with Mr. and Mrs. Burns and talk about the future of their son. However, when Rivers arrives he is surprised to find that Burns's parents are not there, nor are they expected to come. Burns is staying at the seaside home while his parents remain in London
• CH15: Though Burns is still extremely thin and suffers from awful nightmares, Rivers is hesitant to ask him to talk about his memories. He feels that if Burns wants to talk about things, he will bring them up himself. Rivers wonders why he has never really forced his treatment onto Burns, as he has done to the other patients. He has allowed Burns to try to forget his memories; now he wonders if that was really the best thing for him.
• They spend a few days taking walks, visiting the local pub, and talking about other things. One night there is a severe storm, and Rivers hears what he thinks to be a bomb. He wakes up, dresses, and goes outside to find a small crowd of people by a boat on the beach. Rivers asks where Burns is, and a woman points toward the marshes. Rivers pushes through the storm, down into a tunnel that floods at high tide. There he finds Burns, cold and completely rigid, but alive. Rivers thinks to himself, "Nothing justifies this. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing."
• Burns reflects on the tremendous capacity in the imagination for torture and evil; he alludes to the awful imagination that led to death on a cross by suffocation.
• Later, after Burns warms up and has had a good long rest, he opens up to Rivers about his war experience. He was made the captain of a platoon at the early age of twenty-one. It was his job to write letters to families about their sons who had been killed. He talks about the brutality of the Battle of the Somme and how some men proved to be target practice for the German machine guns. Burns would often go on patrol, hoping to be shot in the arm or leg so that he could get home safely.
• Rivers wonders if this is talk is helping to heal Burns, realizing it might just be a sign of further deterioration. Rivers wonders about Burns's future and concludes that he has "missed his chance of being ordinary." - Burns cannot regenerate