The story centres mainly upon six characters: Gordon (a Lieutenant of the Royal Scots Fusiliers); Audebert (a French Lieutenant in the 26th Infantry and reluctant son of a general); Horstmayer (a History of the Jews in Germany German Lieutenant of the 93rd Infantry Division (German Empire)); Father Palmer (a Scottish people priest working as a chaplain and stretcher-bearer); and German tenor Nikolaus Sprink and his Danish people fiancée, mezzo-soprano, Anna Sørensen (two famous opera stars).