Led by Brigadier Nestor, the soldiers hope they are marching west toward the Aegean Sea and the end of their disastrous tour of duty.

Brigadier Nestor, an aging career soldier still devastated by his wife's death a year earlier, has become addicted to morphine and Greek mythology.

His second-in-command, Chief of Staff Major Porfirio, while appearing to be a model soldier, is keeping a treasonous secret.

The mayor is about to marry the madame of the brothel, the church is overrun with rats and the Turkish quarter is surrounded by an open sewer.

But before they can leave they must all contend with a desperate war correspondent and one final act of violence that permanently scars the village.