In a Serbian village on Christmas Day in 1943, the Chetniks accept two downed American pilots and give them hospitality. However, finding out that the Germans are looking for pilots, the Chetniks change attitude towards them, disarming and shutting them off, but the pilots were able to escape. Palming off the corpses of two other killed prisoners to the Germans, who have since captured the real pilots, the Chetniks make local people enraged, despite their captain's attempts to cover up this wrongdoing, done on a public holiday.