New platoon member George Clarke reveals that he served with Jones in the Sudan and questions the Lance Corporal's service record.
As they sit, Jones enters in his old Sudanese uniform, and informs Mainwaring that he is off to the 42nd annual reunion for the veterans of the Battle of Omdurman.
Jones arrives, tired, the next evening, and Frazer, Pike and Walker follow him into the office, where Godfrey is fitting Clarke with his uniform.
Later, Frazer rings someone on the telephone and tells them that after a couple of pints, Clarke told him that he and Jones were captured by the "Fuzzy Wuzzies".
Jones, meanwhile, receives malicious letters that contain two and a half white feathers, and saying that he should not have left Clarke in the desert, and that Walmington-on-Sea is "no place for a coward".
Jones explains that a few days before the Battle of Omdurman, he and Clarke were part of a patrol sent out by General Kitchener to find out the strength of the Mahdi's army.
There was also Sergeant Ironside (Mainwaring), "a nasty, coarse fellow who kept giving us the rough side of his tongue", and a young merry joking Cockney, Private Green (Walker).
When the Dervishes stopped and began to cook a meal, they had an argument and started fighting between each other, giving Jones the chance to free himself.
Jones reveals he has recently been at Somerset House in London and now knows that the Colonel and his wife are dead, so he could tell all, and burn the letters that she and Clarke sent to each other.
As they go after him, Hodges arrives, and tells them that Clarke has resigned and left by train and will post his uniform back.
Jones proceeds to burn the letters with Walker's cigarette lighter, and Hodges screams at him to "put that light out".