Tells about a Russian high school student, Boris Golikov, during the First World War. He has been influenced by the official Czarist patriotism of the period, and is consequently horrified when he learns that his father has deserted from the front. But the arrest and execution of his father, and then the influence of his father's comrade, who has joined the Bolshevik force, leads him to join the Red Army on the Don front. He enters the detachment of the former teacher Semion Galka. With the detachment, he goes through the rear lines of the White forces to join up with the main Red Army.