"Where Have You Gone Charming Billy?"

The beginning of the paragraph has a very dark mood, as illustrated by the line "one by one the soldiers squatted in the shadows, vanishing into the primitive stealth of warfare." Word choice with "shadows" and "primitive stealth" help to convey a dark, slmost oppressive atmosphere. After a heavy introductory description like this, the reader might expect a hardened soldier to be the main character, so they would be surprised to see a young, relatively innocent character like Paul Berlin. He's unaccustomed to seeing death and bloodshed, as shown by the repition of "Billy Boy Watkins had died of a heart attack that afternoon." A hardened soldier woulf be more accepting of Billy Boy's death, not trying to deny it. The dark atmosphere contrasts with the bright innocence of Paul, and causes the reader to feel sympathy towards him.