A few days before the Armistice in November 1918, Édouard Péricourt saves Albert Maillard's life. These two men have nothing in common but the war. Lieutenant Pradelle, by ordering a senseless assault, destroys their lives while binding them as companions in misfortune. On the ruins of the carnage of WWI, condemned to live, the two attempt to survive. Thus, as Pradelle is about to make a fortune with the war victims' corpses, Albert and Édouard mount a monumental scam with the bereaved families' commemoration and a nation's hero worship.