Nearly two years of life "on Commando" have left the weary Boer guerrillas clutching onto their last reserves of strength, faith, energy and will. One such Boer is the young Deneys Reitz. He followed the call to war at the tender age of 17, an ambitious, maverick youth with a knack for surviving the ordeals of war. But now, it would appear, two years into the war, in the middle of the coldest winter in record, thousands of miles from the picturesque farmlands of his youth, his luck is running out. Witnessing helplessly, the execution by firing squad, of two of his close friends, Reitz is sucked into an existential darkness. He comes into a state of dilemma during which, he must chose between an apathetic loss of all faith in the war and humanity, or a traumatized fear in which death and destruction are his only options. A fated encounter with a wounded and dying British officer in the veld offers Reitz a third alternative in which he may find salvation and retain a sense of his humanity.
