Reserve Second Lieutenant Christos Kladis is absent without leave from his unit when he learns that his girlfriend has become engaged to someone else. At the court martial, he refuses to explain himself and is sentenced to dismissal from the army and two years' imprisonment. His father, a retired officer, disowns him. After his release from prison, Christos changes his name and leaves to work as a sailor on ships under the name Grigoris Staridis. When war is declared, he returns to Greece and fights on the front lines.