This film, from Hungarian director Ferenc Kosa, is set in the last year of the second World War. Soldiers dash across sandhills in an obstacle race, chasing a 15-day leave pass for the winner. One soldier, Marton Csorba, kills a man ahead of him to win, although the death is reported as an accident. In an attempt to escape from the horror of war, he returns to his village in the mountains, and there finds only his grandmother. The two of them start out on a long trek to find his parents. His father has deserted, and the two of them are hiding in the mountains.

Csorba and his grandmother come across a young partisan girl, but they are stopped by a squad of soldiers, looking for deserters, before they can help her. Csorba explains that he is on leave and claims to be looking for mushrooms with his grandmother. He is locked up, and in order to win his freedom, he leads the soldiers to the place where he met the partisan. Finally, he finds his father, but both are captured, and his father is killed during an escape attempt, Csorba goes back to fight on the side of the partisans.