The story revolves around a shy guy named Dmitry Neretin, a graduate student. He is sent to the front lines to work as a translator. After weeks of exhausting battles, an unexpected silence falls. The battalion scouts venture beyond the front line and return with a captured fascist captain. He dies during the night. Neretin discovers that the officer did not die from the wound he received during the capture. The military man was killed to prevent him from revealing German defense secrets.