The engine of a Russian fighter plane sputters, and the pilot lands in the middle of a tiny farming village. Chonkin, a Red Army private with little talent for soldiering is dispatched to stand guard until the engine is repaired. Chonkin, a farmboy himself, quickly endears himself to Nyura a beautiful young peasant girl. He pushes the small plane into her garden, where he can keep an eye on it, and settles into tending house and potato patch while Nyura makes her daily rounds as postmistress. In bed, the virile but uncommitted suitor boasts of his skills as a pilot, thinking his little lie never put to a test. Their idyll is interrupted when the German army invades Russia...