Stan plays new recruit Cuthbert Hope, who instantly starts out on the wrong foot with both skirt-chasing Captain Bustle (Jimmy Finlayson), the commanding officer, and Sgt. Banner (Ollie). Ollie in turn starts out on the wrong foot with Jimmy, so now they're all on one another's bad sides as they ride the train to their military encampment. Things continue to go unswimmingly by the time they arrive and stand in their first formation. Stan can do no right, and has a lot of trouble with his gun. As they march off, the other soldiers decide to go swimming, and Ollie sees this and decides he'll go skinnydipping too. Stan wants to join in also, but is ordered to guard their clothes. Ollie has already tossed a lit cigarette nearby, and when Stan kicks the ground the cigarette rolls closer to the clothes. He disobeys orders and goes into the water himself; by the time they're done swimming, they discover their clothes and shoes burnt to a crisp. To make matters worse, they're already very late for an inspection. Ollie gasps via a great intertitle, "Holy Mike, I forgot the inspection--and here we are--*raw*!" There are also two women on horseback riding by, and the men run naked through a cactus path and manage to hide behind a huge billboard advertising the Cecil B. DeMille movie 'The Volga Boatman,' lest the women see them naked. As they're standing there in fear, a skunk wanders by, and then they step on a huge nest of bees, who instantly get loose and follow them all of the way back to the camp. We see in the final shot, due to strategic swelling on their bodies, that they got bitten. There's a lot of great pre-code humor in this, as well as being easily one of their best pre-teaming shorts.
