- Tristram and his company are going to be embarking on a boat soon, but they don't know where they're going.
- Tristram finds an ally in a man called Sergeant Lightbody, who is just as suspicious about the "war" as Tristram.
- Tristram and Sergeant Lightbody discuss the purposes of war while Tristram addresses a letter to Beatrice-Joanna. Sergeant Lightbody is convinced that this war has been invented so that those in power—politicians and rich capitalists—can make a lot of money off it.
- Sergeant Lightbody tells Tristram that he has a sister in the women's Auxiliaries, and that the women soldiers are being trained for combat just as the men are.
- Tristram begins to suspect that history is not as cyclical as he once thought.