Ian Bowes-Lidden is a British writer disheartened at the events in the war. He is called into the British army and raised to the rank of an officer, Colonel Ian fights in the trenches. One day, a fellow soldier points out a strange, green gas. Colonel Ian instructs the soldier to soak his handkerchief in the water, as he does likewise. This saves them from the gas the Germans were using. Colonel Ian saw through the gas the Phantom Archers, a group of ghostly bowmen apparently from the warriors of old Britain. The Archers kill many of the German soldiers and send the rest scurrying to safety.