# Birdie Mansfield — Memoirs of an Infantry Officer character guide

> Birdie Mansfield in Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mansfield, poor Birdie, Birdie, Even Birdie Mansfield

**First appearance:** 0000-i-at-the-army-school

## Snapshot

A fellow officer remembered with affection and grief, Birdie Mansfield is one of the good chaps whose death the narrator carries as a private debt.

## Who they are

Mansfield belongs to the narrator's earlier battalion, part of the tight group whose jokes and habits are recalled in the quieter passages of rest and hospital. He is the kind of comrade whose absence is felt long before it is named, and the narrator's memory of him sharpens the ache of survival. He matters because he is the human face of the losses that give the narrator's protest its urgency.

## Relationships

### [Barton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters/barton)

_romantic_

Barton and Birdie Mansfield have a romantic connection, with Barton showing affection and interest in Birdie.

### [Barton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters/barton)

_romantic_

Barton and Birdie Mansfield have a romantic connection, with Barton showing affection and interest in Birdie.

## In the story

### [II: The Raid](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/ii-the-raid)

Selected to lead the raiding party, expresses gloomy humor.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/i)

In charge of the Raiding Party, pessimistic about the mission, drinking whisky.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/ii)

Becomes loquacious about his past, including hard times in Canada.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/chapters/iii)

Wounded during the raid, helped back to the trench.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters/birdie_mansfield
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/memoirs_of_an_infantry_officer_se/characters