During the Second World War, Stanley Windrush, a bright but reluctant undergraduate, is drafted into the British Army. He approaches service with caution and discomfort, especially when set alongside his friend Arthur Egan, who seems quicker to adapt. Windrush endures the grueling routine of Gravestone Barracks under the stern eye of Sgt. Sutton, where missteps and a stubborn streak mark his early days in uniform. The path is rocky as he battles nerves, homesickness, and a sense that military life clashes with his academic past, all while clinging to a spark of curiosity about what lies beyond the drill square.
After failing his officer selection board, Windrush is reassigned to a lowly holding unit commanded by Major Hitchcock. The detachment is a mix of malingerers and drop-outs, a place where discipline frays and practical jokes bloom. In this backdrop, Private Percival Henry Cox becomes his unlikely mentor, teaching Windrush how to dodge tedious work details and even how to ride the railway without a ticket as a way to cope with the monotony and pressure of army life.
Windrush is eventually pushed toward a new path: training as a Japanese interpreter, where he proves to be a quick study and a prized pupil. His ascent is interrupted by a family connection—his uncle, Brigadier Tracepurcel—who has climbed from Major to a senior War Office position and now fronts a secret operation known as Hatrack. The mission is dressed up as a salvage effort to recover looted German artworks, yet its real aim is to steal the works and push them to two crooked art dealers. The plot twists further when Windrush’s specialization in Japanese instead of German makes him unexpectedly valuable, complicating loyalties and judgment as he moves deeper into the operation.
Windrush’s involvement culminates in a tense escape from the mission’s immediate goals, but he is ultimately captured by British forces while still in a German uniform. The truth of his allegiance is questioned at the POW camp, and only the appearance of Major Hitchcock clarifies the muddled loyalties. He is hospitalized for alleged mental illness and later discharged from service, while Tracepurcel and Cox stage their deaths to escape accountability.
Back in civilian life, Windrush returns to university, where a chance reunion with Cox arrives in the form of an attaché case. Cox is arrested as he leaves by Sgt. Sutton, and Windrush, together with Tracepurcel, becomes a person of interest in the circulating counterfeit artwork. The case twists again when Windrush, acting in innocence, reveals the contents of the attaché case—a large sum of money—to the military police, leading to his own arrest on suspicion of complicity in the fraud. The story closes with a formal dedication, reflecting on those who managed to “get away with it.”
> To all those who got away with it, this film is most respectfully dedicated.
