- Fowler returns to Saigon from Phat Diem after three weeks. He intended to be away for only one week, but getting out proved more troublesome than getting in.
- Pyle had left the morning he arrived, having completed his mission. He was not delayed, but in a letter he leaves for Fowler, he assures him that he won't see Phuong until Fowler gets back. Pyle doesn't want to be unfair or mean.
- Having nothing better to do, Fowler goes to the press conference.
- There, a colonel speaking French reports that the enemy has suffered a defeat and losses.
- An American correspondent asks about French losses, a question the colonel evades with an ambiguous answer.
- Granger, who is there, asks how it could be that the French know the number of the enemy dead but not the number of their own.
- More evasion from the colonel. The French correspondents don't join in the baiting.
- Granger keeps pressing.
- The colonel's temper begins to fray.
- Granger next asks what the French plan to do next.
- The colonel, surprisingly switching to good English, says they'd have more drop if the supplies the Americans had promised had arrived.
- Granger begins to write this news.
- The colonel tells him it is for background, not for reporting. He worries about diplomatic problems and not causing trouble between the two countries.
- He gives Granger some basic facts about their shortage in supplies then storms off.
- Granger goes to write his telegram.
- Fowler's is short. He can't report what he witnessed in Phat Diem. The censors wouldn't allow it and he'd be expelled from the country, ensuring Pyle's victory.
- Returning to his hotel room in Hanoi, he sees he received a telegram of promotion. He's to be an opinion editor in England.
- So much for fearing expulsion!