Promoted from the rank of Acting Temporary Captain in a Royal Flying Corps training squadron, to that of very temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in the Air Ministry, ace pilot Bartholomew Wolfe Bandy blots his copybook with an ill-considered speech, flies to Ireland by mistake, and is sent back to the chaos of the Western Front as a lieutenant with the 13th Bicycle Battalion (also known as, "Captain Craig and the Forty Thieves"). Reclaimed by the newly, hatched RAF that had just been born on April Fools' Day, Bandy, now a major, survives Irish gun-runners, Bolshevik spies, and his honeymoon with only minor injuries and major embarrassment.
