At the beginning of the war Widmerpool joins the army and with the advantage of his Territorial commission is rapidly promoted. By mid-1940 he holds the rank of major and is serving as Deputy-Assistant-Adjutant-General at Divisional Headquarters in Northern Ireland. Jenkins becomes his junior officer and observes Widmerpool's industry and his skill as a manipulator. Among the troops at headquarters, serving as a mess waiter, is Charles Stringham. Widmerpool is embarrassed by the presence of his former school-fellow, and engineers his transfer to a mobile laundry unit, which is sent to Singapore where Stringham meets his death. In June 1941, Widmerpool is transferred to London as a Military Assistant Secretary at the Cabinet Office. Promotions to lieutenant colonel and colonel follow and he is appointed an OBE. In his new post he is close to the centres of power and is able to influence war policy and settle old scores. He is complicit in the death of another school rival, Peter Templer, who as the result of a policy recommendation by Widmerpool, is abandoned while on a secret mission in the Balkans. Just after the end of the war, Widmerpool surprises his acquaintances by marrying Stringham's niece, Pamela Flitton, an ATS driver, whose sex life is rumoured to be "gladiatorial".