Warsaw 1944: Marcin is a member of the Home Army, a non-communist army of resistance that works together with other anti-Nazi factions. The group struggles for a little over two months to oust the German army from Poland without avail. All its members are forced flee. Perhaps they would have been able to keep the fight going longer if there hadn't been so many internal rivalries among the resistance fighters. Marcin tries to steer a moderate course between the royalist right-wingers and the communist factions, but is unable to accomplish anything before the Russians arrive. As he is about to leave to participate the ghetto uprising, Marcin has a love-interest who gives him a ring engraved with the symbol of a free Poland (the crowned eagle), but loses track of her in the chaos of the rebellion and its aftermath.