Bev, because of his education, is employed as the mouthpiece of the Free Britons and called upon to report on the events of the general strike. He is frustrated when his work is censored by the leader, a man known as Colonel Lawrence. The spreading strike action reaches fever pitch and becomes a general strike, reported to the reader mostly in diary form. Charles III takes command of the country as it grinds to a halt. A few months after the strike, Bev is arrested again and sentenced to life in a secure institution, which again is neither prison nor hospital. The only way out of this facility is to be retrieved by a family member.