Jack is approached by Ted Chater, a Sergeant who knew him in Murmansk. Chater has got his girlfriend pregnant, unaware that she was a minor. Jack hides Chater while he looks for the girl. He traces her father, Stobart, and learns that she killed herself after he told her that the regimental adjutant, Captain Barford, would put Chater in prison. Manners invites Barford and Jack to a shooting-party. Manners wants Jack to demolish a country house, Mandrake Place, to make room for a housing project. Jack stops Chater from shooting Barford, but then leaves him to shoot himself.