In the episode's plot, Private Godfrey (played by Arnold Ridley) admits that he was a conscientious objector during the Great War.
[2] Following a standard exercise on the stealthy approach to an enemy soldier, Captain Mainwaring calls Sergeant Wilson into his office.
With characteristic pompousness, he convenes a parade of the remainder of the platoon to inform them of Godfrey's apparent cowardice, but his thunder is stolen by the unimpressed ARP Warden Hodges, who wants to discuss an upcoming ARP/Home Guard drill.
The training drill arrives, during which Warden Hodges will teach the men how to retrieve unconscious bodies (represented by sacks of straw) from burning buildings filled with smoke.
Later, Godfrey recuperates from the training exercise in bed, having also experienced smoke inhalation, and is visited by the entire platoon, having overcome their earlier feelings for him in concern for his health.
Godfrey's sister Cissy explains that, whilst refusing to fight in the First World War, Godfrey instead joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a stretcher bearer, and was responsible, during the Battle of the Somme, for a tremendous act of heroism in rescuing several wounded soldiers from No Man's Land under heavy fire (which, with characteristic modesty, he downplays, and he refuses to wear his medal on the grounds that it feels "ostentatious").