A parachute mine has ripped up 100 yards of railway track and the gas and water supplies have been cut, the telephone wires are down, and Pike has got his head stuck through the bars of a gate.
Mainwaring is in the church hall, conducting an interview and photo session with Mr Cheeseman, a member of the local press who is temporarily joining the platoon to report on its activities.
Hodges implores Inspector Baker to arrest him, but Mainwaring points out that they are up against sixteen fully armed men.
He begins issuing a number of stringent edicts to Wilson, Jones and Frazer to shout from their bicycles, including: all looters being shot, all rumour-mongers, defeatists and those not following military law being imprisoned, and for no baths to be taken or liquor to be sold without a permit, which Frazer supports (only because Mainwaring has given him responsibility for alcohol permits).
Frazer and Wilson say that he is behaving like a tyrant, and usurping the power of the land, but Mainwaring again denies it and says that for their own safety, everyone must "knuckle down" and get used to it.