 An American soldier, W. Dangerfield Phelps and his detested sergeant, company top kick Peter McGaffney, are captured by the Germans while engaged in a bitter fist fight inside a shell-hole on the Western front. The two bond in the German POW camp and escape into the snow outside the perimeter, dressed in white burnooses they have purloined from Arab POWs, which render them virtually invisible in the snow. Recaptured, and mistaken for Arabs by their garb, they are sent to Turkey aboard a German prisoner train, from which they escape. Accidentally finding themselves on a Russian freighter, Phelps and McGaffney save an Arabian princess, the daughter of the Emir of Jaffa, from drowning. The amorous ship s captain, who has been competing with the two Americans for the woman s affection, demands fare from the damsel in distress. Phelps -- penniless after he and McGaffney earlier had bribed the captain to stay out of the ship s brig -- offers to pay for her as he has fallen in love with her. (Phelps takes the liberty of kissing her, for which she has removed her veil, an act witnessed by one of her retainers.) The captain responds that they must pay him tomorrow, or he will put them in irons. McGaffney gets the money by mugging the ship s purser and locking him up in a berth, and the grateful princess tells the two that her father will repay them. McGaffney, much to Phelps  objection, insists she write out an I.O.U. Shortly thereafter, the princess is taken from the ship by an Arabian official, the Shevket, as it anchors off her homeland, and before departing tells the disappointed Phelps that she is to marry Shevket per her father s orders. After she leaves, the two Yanks abandon ship ahead of the now-freed purser and the angered crew. The two soldiers swim to shore, and the hungry McGaffney demands that they go see the princess  father to get their money back in order to get something to eat. Phelps convinces McGaffney to accompany him to the U.S. Consulate for aid, but they are thwarted when they spy the ship s captain and purser talking to the consul. It is time for Plan B. -- go to the Emir and ask for their money back. Little do they know that Phelps  transgression with the princess has been reported, shaming the Emir and Shevket, whom both have sent men to track down the unwitting pair and kill them.