The play is set in a sandbagged trench at Gallipoli, 1915, and throws the concepts of heroism into a new perspective. Private Barry Moon, a raw country boy, and Brendan Barra, an older soldier, share a small forward trench, and they must bond to survive. They find themselves battling not only the enemy, for whom they have a sneaking admiration, but also themselves, and the military establishment. The mateship they develop is their uniquely Australian way to combat the dehumanizing effects of war by bonding laterally, thus revealing a pathway to the survival of the human spirit in the face of the horrors of war.