In 1942 World War II is in full swing. German cities are bombarded on a daily basis and many civilians die. To keep her daughter safe, Mrs. Lyndt takes six year old Inge to her mother's estate in Prussia. There Inge befriends Paul-Emile Diderot, a sixteen year old French prisoner of war. As the Red Army advances on Prussia, Paul-Emile decides to escape with Inge his ticket to freedom. They leave the estate at the end of January 1945, during the coldest winter in a decade. In a chaise drawn by two horses they join the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Germans to the west. Inge expects adventure, instead finds herself mired in a cataclysm. After months of hardship and struggling against nature and enemy forces they reach Paris. Traumatized by his experiences, Paul-Emile distances himself from the girl who loves him. At fourteen a rebellious Inge is reunited with her parents who are at a loss how to handle her willful independence. Inge blames all her problems, mostly self inflicted, on the war and Paul-Emile. Thirty-five years later their paths cross again at an archaeological dig in Egypt.