The action begins in July 1942 with a retreat near Oskol. The Germans approached Voronezh, and the regiment departs from the just dug up the defensive fortifications without a single shot, and the first battalion, led by the battalion commander Shiryaev, remains for cover. To help the battalion commander, the main character of the story, Lieutenant Kerzhentsev, remains. Having tracked the set two days, the first battalion is also removed. On the way, they unexpectedly meet the connected headquarters and friend of the Kerzhentsev chemist Igor Svidersky with the news that the regiment is broken, you need to change the route and go to join with him, and the Germans are only ten kilometers away. They walk another day, until they are located in dilapidated sheds. The Germans catch them there. The battalion is on the defensive. Lots of losses. Shiryaev with fourteen fighters leaves, and Kerzhentsev with his orderly Valega, Igor, Sedykh and Lazarenko’s connected headquarters remain to cover them. Lazarenko is killed, and the rest safely leave the barn and catch up with their own. This is not difficult, since the retreating parts of the disorder stretch along the road. They are trying to search for their own: a regiment, a division, an army, but this is impossible. Retreat. Crossing the Don. So they reach Stalingrad.

In Stalingrad, they stop at Marya Kuzminichna, the sister of the former Igor company commander in the reserve regiment, and heal a long-forgotten peaceful life. Conversations with the hostess and her husband Nikolai Nikolaevich, tea with jam, walks with the neighbor girl Lyusya, who reminds Yuri Kerzhentsev of his beloved, also Lyusa, swimming in the Volga, the library - all this is real peaceful life. Igor pretends to be a sapper and, together with Kerzhentsev, falls into the reserve, into a special-purpose group. Their job is to prepare the industrial facilities of the city for the explosion. But peaceful life is suddenly interrupted by air raid and two-hour bombing - the German launched an attack on Stalingrad.

Sappers are sent to a tractor plant near Stalingrad. There is a long, painstaking preparation of the plant for an explosion. Several times a day you have to repair the chain broken during the next shelling. Between the hours of duty Igor leads disputes with Georgy Akimovich, an electrical engineer at a thermal power plant. Georgy Akimovich is indignant at the Russian’s inability to fight: “The Germans drove from Berlin to Stalingrad in cars, while we are in jackets and overalls in the trenches with a three-line model of the ninety-first year.” Georgy Akimovich believes that only a miracle can save the Russians. Kerzhentsev recalls the recent conversation of soldiers about their land, "as greasy as butter, about the bread that covers you with their heads." He does not know what to call it. Tolstoy called it the "hidden warmth of patriotism." “Perhaps this is the miracle that George Akimovich is waiting for, a miracle more powerful than German organization and tanks with black crosses.”

The city has been bombed for ten days, probably there is nothing left of it, but there is no order for an explosion. So, without waiting for the explosion order, the backup sappers are sent to a new appointment - to the front headquarters, to the engineering department, on the other side of the Volga. At headquarters they receive appointments, and Kerzhentsev has to part with Igor. He is sent to the 184th division. He meets his first battalion and crosses with him to that shore. The entire coast is in flames.

The battalion immediately engages in battle. The battalion commander perishes, and Kerzhentsev takes command of the battalion. He has at his disposal a fourth and fifth company and a platoon of foot scouts under the command of the elder Chumak. His position is the Metiz plant. Here they linger for a long time. The day begins with the morning cannonade. Then “sabantuy” or attack. September passes, October begins.

The battalion is being transferred to more firing positions between the Metiz and the end of the ravine on Mamaev. The regiment commander Major Borodin attracted Kerzhentsev for demining and construction of a dugout to help his engineer, Lieutenant Lisagoras. There are only thirty-six people in the battalion instead of the four hundred laid out, and a small area for a normal battalion is a serious problem. Soldiers begin to dig trenches, sappers set mines. But then it turns out that the positions need to be changed: a colonel, a divisional commander, arrives at the command post and orders to take the hill where the machine guns of the enemy are located. Scouts will be given help, and Chuikov promised “corn-growers”. The time before the attack is slow. Kerzhentsev exposes from the Communist Party the political separators who came to check and, unexpectedly for himself, sets off for the attack.

They took the hill, and it was not very difficult: twelve of the fourteen fighters survived. They are sitting in a German dugout with a comrade Karnaukhov and scout commander Chumak, Kerzhentsev’s recent adversary, and discussing the battle. But here it turns out that they are cut off from the battalion. They occupy a circular defense. Suddenly, the orderliesman Valery Kerzhentseva appeared in the dugout, who remained at the checkpoint, as he turned up his leg three days before the attack. He brings a stew and a note from Senior Adjutant Kharlamov: the attack should be at 4.00.

The attack fails. More and more people die - from wounds and direct hits. There is no hope of survival, but ours nevertheless break through to them. Shiryaev flies at Kerzhentsev, who received the appointment of a battalion commander instead of Kerzhentsev. Kerzhentsev surrenders the battalion and moves to Lisagor. At first they mess around, go to visit Chumak, Shiryaev, Karnaukhov. For the first time in a month and a half of acquaintance, Kerzhentsev talks about life from the comrades of his former battalion, Farber. This is a type of intellectual in war, an intellectual who is not very good at commanding a company entrusted to him, but feels his responsibility for everything that he did not learn to do on time.

On November 19, Kerzhentsev had a name day. A holiday is planned, but breaks down due to a general offensive on the entire front. Having prepared the KP to Major Borodin, Kerzhentsev releases the sappers with Lisagor ashore, and he, by order of the major, goes to his former battalion. Shiryaev figured out how to take the message moves, and the major agrees with a military trick that will save people. But the chief of staff, Captain Abrosimov, insists on a “head-on” attack. He comes to KP Shiryaev after Kerzhentsev and sends the battalion into the attack, not listening to the arguments.

Kerzhentsev goes on the attack with the soldiers. They immediately fall under the bullets and lie in the craters. After nine hours spent in the funnel, Kerzhentsev manages to get to his. The battalion lost twenty-six people, almost half. Karnaukhov died. Wounded, falls into the medical battalion Shiryaev. The command of the battalion takes Farber. He is the only commander who did not take part in the attack. Abrosimov left him with him.

The next day, the trial of Abrosimov took place. Major Borodin says in court that he trusted his chief of staff, but he deceived the regiment commander, "he exceeded power, and people died." Then a few more people speak. Abrosimov believes that he was right, only a massive attack could take tanks. “Kombats protect people, therefore they do not like attacks. Bucky could only take an attack. And it’s not his fault that people reacted to this dishonestly, scared. ” And then Farber rises. He does not know how to speak, but he knows that those who died in this attack were not afraid. “The courage is not to go with a bare chest on a machine gun” ... The order was “not to attack, but to take possession”. The technique invented by Shiryaev would save people, but now they are not ...

Abrosimov was demoted to a penal battalion, and he leaves, not saying goodbye to anyone. And for Farber Kerzhentsev is now calm. The long-awaited tanks arrive at night. Kerzhentsev is trying to make up for the lost name day, but again the offensive. Shiryaev escaped from the medical battalion, now the chief of staff, the battle begins. In this battle, Kerzhentsev was injured, and he ends up in the medical battalion. From the medical battalion he returns to Stalingrad, "home", meets Sedykh, finds out that Igor is alive, is going to his house in the evening and again does not have time: they are being transferred for battles with the Northern group. There is an offensive.