Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to anti-gay attitudes typical of the period, alcohol misuse, religious intolerance, racism, and pregnancy loss.

During World War II, narrator Captain Charles Ryder looks out over a military camp on the morning of his departure. He muses that the land, destroyed by the army’s arrival, would have been destroyed even without the war—turned into a suburb. The camp is adjacent to an asylum, filled with “collaborationists,” or Nazi sympathizers. The soldiers begrudge them their comfortable lodgings and certainty in their political convictions. Morale has declined following the announcement that the company is to be dispatched to the Middle East. Charles feels weary from the constant stress and loss of wartime. He thinks of his disillusion with the army as a marriage that has lost its love.

As he prepares to depart, Charles is joined by Hooper, a platoon commander, which leads him to recall Hooper’s arrival in the company. Their commanding officer had determined Hooper’s hair was too long and demanded it be cut during dinner. Hooper, though embarrassed, took this in stride. Charles reflects on Hooper’s pragmatism, considering him a symbol of “Young England” and using the man as an “acid test” for the positions and actions of “Youth.