Four recruits arrive at Kimberley station to undergo training at the local army camp. Soutie, Liebling, Tiny and PP soon become friends as they are put through their paces by the sergeant. They all volunteer for border duty, where they are joined by Chico, a black tracker, and are sent out on patrol. After they come upon a murdered farm family, their radio is destroyed by enemy fire and they are required to find their way back to base camp. In the ensuing skirmishes some of them perish.

A bleak and violent story of delinquency and broken family ties. Christiaan MacDonald escapes from the reformatory where he has been serving a sentence for car theft and asks his sister Dina for help. When his father tells Christiaan he is adopted, and furthermore is banished from the MacDonald family, the young man responds with criminal behavior that rip the family apart.