The Soviet command has alarming information about the new invention of the enemy. According to intelligence, the Nazis delivered a batch of new chemical shells filled with gas of tremendous destructive power to one of the sections of the Eastern Front. The Nazis want to test them in combat conditions, and then apply them on a large scale.

Volkhov Front in 1942. The young political instructor of the counter-propaganda department of the headquarters of the division Rusanov is torn to the forefront. Together with an experienced warrior — captain Shaternikov — the hero gets to the forefront and transmits from the sound transmission programs addressed to German soldiers. And in the hours of calm passes several kilometers in order to see Katya, the signal woman of a neighboring sector of the front.

This literary adaptation was one of only two films made during World War II on the subject of the Civil War following the Bolshevik Revolution, as attention by filmmakers and viewers shifted away from past history and toward the current conflict.