When Ex Colonel Merton discovers a burglar ransacking his home, he is shocked to find out that the thief is a former soldier from his tank regiment. When the thief escapes, Merton tries to contact former members of the regiment, in order to find out what set the thief on the road to crime.

Charlie Bubbles, a writer, up from the working class of Manchester, England, who, in the course of becoming prematurely rich and famous, has mislaid a writer's basic tool – the capacity to feel and to respond. Now he must visit his estranged wife and son, whom he has set up on a farm outside his native city. His journey accidentally becomes an attempt to reestablish his connections with life, people, and his own history.

A captain is promoted by his company from tramp steamers to their flagship passenger liner. Although he is a thoroughly competent sailor ready to take charge of such a ship, he is less prepared for the social duties his new position involves, not least the way he in which becomes the target for all the unattached women on board.

A grounded American fighter pilot is switched to espionage on a special job in which he must kill a small-time Paris lawyer suspected of double-crossing France by selling out radio operators to the Nazis.

Captain Vinka Kovalenko defects from Russia, but not for political reasons. She defects because she feels discriminated against as a woman. Captain Chuck Lockwood gets the order to show her the bright side of capitalism, while she tries to convince him of the superiority of communism. Naturally, they fall in love, but there's still the KGB, which doesn't like the idea of having a defected Russian officer running around in London.