Guy is posted to Cairo, Allied headquarters for the Mediterranean and Middle East. He becomes caught up in the evacuation of Crete, where he acquits himself well, though chaos and muddle prevail. At this time he meets Corporal-Major Ludovic. (Waugh may have based the character of Ludovic on one or two real people: the soldier of fortune and novelist John Ludwick, and/or the future press tycoon and politician Robert Maxwell.) With a few others they escape to Egypt in a small boat. Ludovic wades ashore in Egypt, carrying Guy. All the others in the boat have "disappeared"[the delirious sapper Captain who was in command disappears, evidently 'precipitated' by Ludovic, but there is nothing in the text to indicate that the rest of the 'small party' on the boat disappear]. Apparently a hero, Ludovic is commissioned as an officer.