Terrible days, weeks and months of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War... There are no commanders, no tanks, no planes. There is an individual trench and a rifle, and who is next to you is unknown. And ahead are enemies with cannons and machine guns. So a person is faced with a choice: to stand to the end or?.. The heroes of the new novel by the recognized master of Russian action-packed literature are ordinary Red Army soldiers and sergeants, officers and generals. Each of them is looking for an answer to the question of what to do: leaving everything, save themselves or defend their Motherland in trouble?