The story takes place against the background of the Great War, telling the risks taken by Italian soldiers and their will to survive while fighting bravely. In 1917, on the Isonzo front, Cesare, a war photographer, and Don Silvano, a chaplain, are asked to escort to the trenches the young soldier Vanin, condemned to death sentence for having simulated to be a telegrapher. As Vanin manages to escape, Cesare and Don Silvano, who in the meantime are joined by Teresa, a young girl with mental problems in love with Don Silvano, are desperate. If they don't find the prisoner, they will be sentenced to death too, so they set off in search of Vanin in the costant fear of being found out. Finally, they succeed in catching him up in his native village where he's looking after his wife who's giving birth. But a sudden Austrian advance takes them by surprise and they are captured by the enemy. Only a brave and unexpected intervention by Vanin manages to save them. Cesare, Don Silvano and Vanin are now bound by friendship and solidarity. In the way back, while the Austrian army launch an attack to the Italian lines, the three men all inspired by patriotism carry out an extraordinary act of bravery. It will make them win no medal, but they will succeed in saving Vanin by a trick full of irony.