Italy, 1917. During WWI, Countess Albertina Regis, the daughter of an important general of the Italian army, maintains an exchange of letters with the young Lieutenant Massimiliano Ranieri, with whom she feels she has fallen in love despite having never met him but only through his words. In order to get to know him, she decides to enlist as a nurse and leave for the front. Here she will discover that Lieutenant Ranieri is dead, but that the true author of the letters is the charming Sergeant Rocco Parri. Albertina and Rocco fall madly in love, but their relationship will have to face the horrors of war and the pitfalls placed on their way by the cynical Captain Avogadro, who has set his eyes on Albertina's dowry.