In the middle of the eighteenth century, at the time of the Prusso-Austrian War, a cuirassier, a hussar and an infantryman meet by chance and hide together in a secluded place. The war has left different marks on each of them, but they all long for normal human happiness. Although they initially have different attitudes towards military service, they are changed by their stay in seclusion and the atmosphere of life in a peasant cottage and refuse to return to the Austrian army. But all three Theresian "misfits" take up arms again, which they no longer want to touch, when the solitude is overrun by the Prussians. They manage to cover the escape of the family and their child, but pay with their lives.