During the Russian Civil War, orphan Fyodor (Fedka) Trofimov, whose father was killed by Whites, is adopted by a Red cavalry unit.

1919. Gleb Prokhorov, a worker from St. Petersburg, is sent on a mission by the party to lead a small food supply detachment with a mandate signed by Lenin to a village to get bread for starving Petrograd. But in an unequal battle with the kulaks, the entire food supply detachment is killed, and the wounded Prokhorov passes the mandate on to his thirteen-year-old son, Glebka...

Driver Panachuk, who took «left» passengers, is in a hurry to Gorsk. Panachuk tells the policeman who stopped him that he saw a murdered doctor in a crashed «Moskvich» car on the way.