Connell tells his story in an understated fashion, most often allowing the events to speak for themselves. He does, however, at times interject his own opinions, and he makes it clear that his is a modernist perspective: The battle is finally more absurd than heroic, more pitiful than romantic.
He is captured by a colonel who is son of Don Lupe that was killed by Juvencio. When some men are trampling on his small property he goes out to tell them not to do that when he is captured. He doesn't want to die and he says that he is not a threat to anybody because he is too old then the colonel tells his men to get Juvencio drunk.
