Barrow arrives early and observes the battalion 's officers ( including Sinclair ) dancing rowdily . Barrow and Sinclair briefly swap their respective military backgrounds . Sinclair joined the regiment as an enlisted bandsman and rose through the ranks , winning the Military Medal and Distinguished Service Order during the war . Barrow by contrast came to the regiment directly from Oxford University , his ancestors having been colonels of the regiment before him – although he served only for a year with the regiment back in 1933 before being posted to " special duties " . When Sinclair humorously tells of the time he was briefly thrown in Barlinnie Prison for being drunk and disorderly ( also in 1933 ) , Barrow rather reticently mentions his experience as a prisoner in a Japanese POW camp . Sinclair dismissively assumes Barrow received preferential treatment being an officer ( " officer 's privileges and amateur theatricals " ) and sat out the war , but in fact Barrow is deeply psychologically scarred after being tortured by the Japanese but does not tell Sinclair who not-so-privately resents the fact that he is being replaced by a " stupid wee man "
Japanese POW camp
Japanese war crimes
Tunes of Glory