The events unfold during the years of the Civil War. Commissar Fadeytsev once spared the life of a White officer, Chugureyev. Now, in the days of the counter-revolutionary uprising, Chugureyev, sent by his command to a remote island, encounters Fadeytsev, who is hiding in the house of a gamekeeper named Maksim. The gamekeeper is sentenced to hang, and the sentence is carried out. Fadeytsev manages to escape captivity, but being on an island, he knows full well that he won’t get far from the enemy...