Just how close?

"When they lifted you up out of bed to carry you into the dressing room you could look out of the window and see the new graves in the garden..."

I believe that Hemingway uses this as a reminder to the reader, just how close to death Henry and other soldiers were. At any time and any place, that could have certainly been the very end. They had no idea when there time would come, or even if it would in this war or the next. But small reminders like this one were showing up everywhere.