The novel begins with an attack by modern, well-equipped Canadian troops in Sicily amazed to find their enemy, mounted on horses, defending a gated castle. Wine-flushed, sun-struck, the victorious Canadians move into bitter fighting in Italy, which ends with the grim storming of the Adolf Hitler Line. The theme is execution - of friend and foe, and man himself. Adam, the chief character, Bazin, Rifleman Jones, the padre and the rest of the soldiers, discover that execution is the essential evil. It is their plight, and man's, to share in execution, and at the same time to struggle towards meaning and justification.