A first person narrator who tells the story through careful description, reportage of dialogue and insightful commentary about the old man. The narrator makes the reader see the old man. His engagement with him suddenly brings the old man into focus, he emerges out of the faceless, voiceless crowd. The Narrator's consciousness of the approaching enemy "contact" is used to create the dramatic tension between the immobility of the old man and the coming destruction as he constantly observes the movement of carts across the bridge while talking. The narrator's conversation allows the old man to have a voice. As he speaks to the scout, we along with the scout, gradually understand his plight and what the war has done to him. The voiceless victims speak through the old man.