Young hockey player Illu spends his summer in local restaurants, just like the stunning blonde Salme, with whom he and every man in town is in love.
The Finnish army retreats during the war summer of 1944. Corporal Lauri Ojala is left on the wrong side of the Vuoksi River. He decides to break ranks with the army and goes home. Two months later, Ojala is forced to dig his own grave.