Major Joe Dawson parachutes into Nazi-held France where he is immediately picked up by members of the Maquis resistance movement. He discloses to the leader, Boule, that his mission is to kidnap the well-protected German General Stryker and take him back alive to London. The plan is to arouse the suspicions of the Gestapo as to Stryker's loyalty in order to get him out into the open. Then, as he is being carried back to Germany for trial, he will be taken from his German guards. The maquisard with whom Dawson will work is Yvonne, who will pose as his wife. She is repulsed by his coldness and the nonchalance with which he kills in order to accomplish his ends, but she works with him for the cause. She later learns that Dawson and a woman companion (Ella More) had been in France before on the same mission, but they had been caught and tortured, with Dawson driven out of his mind before escaping back to England. There, he had been confined to a mental hospital, escaped, and was now back on his own to complete his original mission.