In the summer of 1914, Adrien Fournier, an engineer conscripted into the French Army, is assigned to join a group of soldiers helping to design and build a bridge to move troops near the front lines. While scouting a suitable location for the bridge, Fournier and his fellows are caught in the middle of an attack. Although a shell explodes in his face Fournier survives the attack. But while his limbs and his body suffer only minimal damage, the lower part of his face is torn to shreds — only landing in the mud prevents him from bleeding to death (the dried muck seals off a number of key blood vessels severed by the blast). It is some time before Fournier can be moved to an Army hospital, and he cannot talk through his ruined mouth, communicating with notes scratched onto a small chalkboard. Fournier finds himself in a special wing for officers of the hospital Val de Grâce in Paris. Given the time and circumstances a relatively comfortable area and a good bit different from the crowded and spartan wards for common foot soldiers. As a dedicated surgeon struggles to rebuild Fournier's face with the primitive means available to him, the once-handsome engineer ponders an uncertain future. Commiserating with Fournier are Alain, his best friend from college; Pierre and Henri, a pair of fellow officers also suffering facial injuries; and Anais, a patient and warm-hearted nurse who brings hope to the hospital's most severely injured men. All the time, Fournier dreams of being reunited Clémence, the woman he met and fell in love with shortly before his injury.