With a deadline for completion in May, the work on the bridge is a disaster. The prisoners work as little as possible and sabotage what they can. In addition, Japanese engineering plans are poor. Should Saito fail to meet his deadline, he would be obliged to commit ritual suicide. Desperate, he uses the anniversary of Japan's 1905 victory in the Russo-Japanese War as an excuse to save face and announces a general amnesty, releasing Nicholson and his officers and exempting them from manual labour. Nicholson is shocked by the poor job being done by his men and orders the building of a proper bridge, intending it to survive the war and stand as tribute to the British Army's ingenuity for centuries to come. Clipton objects, believing this to be collaboration with the enemy.