The chapter opens with a flashback to the beginning of the novel, when the protagonist is a young boy in a small town in the north of England. He is a member of a small band of soldiers who have been sent to fight in the civil war against the Ottoman Empire. The narrator tells the story of how he was sent to the front to fight against the Turks, and how he came to be the youngest man in the regiment. He tells the tale of how his father, a captain, refused to allow him to serve in the army because he did not want to be associated with a woman. He also tells the protagonist that his father wanted to keep the girl away from battle so that she could make it official that she was a woman before he was called up. The chapter ends with the protagonist telling the narrator that he has already admitted that he belongs at the front.