Italy in the last days of the war. En route for 8th Army is gallant Major Widdicombe, just arrived from England, with three cook-reinforcements. A slight error takes him to the mountain village of Borgo San Marco, where he finds himself cut off from both armies - along with equally gallant German Major Trommel and his batman. As the fortunes of war favour first one side and then the other in plain below, the two majors satisfy military honour by taking each other prisoner and sharing the spoils of victory, of which the chief one is the ever-willing Countess of San Marco.
For her part she persuades the two heroes to set out on an important mission. A mule-train, bearing indispensable olive oil for the beleaguered village, is missing. In the mountains, the two majors and their men are sentenced to death by Communist partisans and a fate allegedly worse by a party of man-mad Amazons, before they all become involved in the hilarious climax.
W. H. Canaway wrote about the futility of war in his novel, the Grey Seas of Jutland. This time he is concerned with the farce of war.