An antifascist resister has been condemned to death. A train is moving him to another jail. Although in irons, he keeps an eye on his police escort who dozes off in the compartment. The condemned man opens the window, jumps out and disappears under cover of darkness. The heavy chain is a painful obstacle to his progress. He tries to steal a hacksaw from the steamroller. The driver notices him and turns on him. The fugitive comes to a village. He encounters a woman. She is frightened and sends him away. At the end of his tether, he collapses in the middle of a field. A peasant picks him up in his cart. With the help of a soldier who sympathizes to the resistance, he manages to smuggle him through the police roadblocks. Despite his wife's rebukes, the peasant harbors the fettered fugitive. The authorities start house-to-house searches. The condemned man goes out in the street so as not to be found in the home of his rescuer. The young soldier is filling through the fugitive's chain, but is hit by a bullet. The condemned man makes it to a partisan unit.