After a young man graduates from a prestigious college, he rebels by preferring a carefree existence rather than the life of fighting the rungs within the treacherous American corporate ladder. For his means of survival he becomes a New York cab driver.

The core of the plot is the romantic triangle formed by the protagonist, a conscripted soldier named Private Brigg, a worldly professional soldier named Sergeant Driscoll, and Phillipa Raskin, the daughter of the Regimental Sergeant Major. The location is a British army base in Singapore during the Malayan Emergency.

A widowed mother decides to go after the child psychologist she works for because she thinks he'll be able to provide for her toddler, the catch is her employer doesn't know about her son and he doesn't particularly care for children despite his profession.

King Henry II of England has trouble with the Church. When the Archbishop of Canterbury dies, he has a brilliant idea. Rather than appoint another pious cleric loyal to Rome and the Church, he will appoint his old drinking and wenching buddy, Thomas Becket, technically a deacon of the church, to the post. Unfortunately, Becket takes the job seriously and provides abler opposition to Henry.