Sergeant Willi Trump recounts the African campaign. He describes how he and his men traverse the desert in blind obedience, sacrificing sleep and enduring hunger and thirst. Always believing that the army leadership knows what it intends to do with them. Like mechanical beings obeying a foreign will, they fight against swarms of flies and enemy attacks. Ultimately, they are defeated. In their retreat, they must contend with the relentless assaults of the Americans and the British. In the end, all that remains is a longing for home, which many of them will never see again.