1915-1918 The American Frederick Henry is a lieutenant in the sanitary forces of the Italian army (the Italian because the United States has not yet entered the war, and Henry volunteered). Before the attack in the town on Plavna, where the sanitary units are located, there is a lull. Officers spend time whoever knows how - they drink, play billiards, go to a brothel and drive a regimental priest into the paint, discussing various intimate things with him.
A young nurse, Catherine Barkley, comes to a nearby English hospital, and her fiancé died in France. She regrets that she did not marry him before, did not give him even a little happiness.
A rumor sweeps across the troops that we must wait for the imminent offensive. An urgent need to break up the dressing station for the wounded. Austrian units are close to Italians - on the other side of the river. Henry brightens up the tension of expectation by courting Katherine, although he is confused by some of the oddities of her behavior. First, after trying to kiss her, he gets a slap in the face, then the girl kisses him herself, excitedly asking if he will always be kind to her. Henry doesn’t exclude that she is a little crazy, but the girl is very beautiful, and meeting her is better than spending evenings in the officer’s brothel. At the next date, Henry comes thoroughly drunk and is also very late - however, the date will not take place: Katherine is not entirely healthy. Suddenly, the lieutenant feels unusually lonely, his heart is dreary and dreary.
The next day, it becomes known that there will be an attack in the upper river at night, ambulances must go there. Passing by the hospital, Henry for a minute jumps out to see Katherine, she gives him a medallion with the image of St. Anthony - for good luck. Arriving at the place, he settles with the drivers in the dugout; young Italians together blamed the war - if they hadn’t persecuted their relatives for desertion, none of them would have been here. There is nothing worse than war. Losing it is better. What will happen? The Austrians will reach Italy, get tired and return home - everyone wants to return to their homeland. War is needed only by those who profit from it.
The attack begins. A bomb gets into the dugout where the lieutenant with the drivers is. Wounded at the feet, Henry tries to help a dying driver nearby. Those who survived deliver him to a first-aid post. There, like nowhere else, the dirty side of the war is visible - blood, groans, torn bodies. Henry is preparing to be sent to the central hospital - in Milan. Before leaving, a priest visits him; he sympathizes with Henry not so much because he was wounded, but because it is difficult for him to love. Man, God ... And yet the priest believes that someday Henry will learn to love - his soul has not yet been killed - and then he will be happy. By the way, his familiar nurse - seems to be Barkley? - also transferred to the Milan hospital.
In Milan, Henry undergoes complicated knee surgery. Unexpectedly for himself, he eagerly awaits Katherine's arrival and, as soon as she enters the ward, experiences an amazing discovery: he loves her and cannot live without her. When Henry learned to walk on crutches, he and Katherine started to go for a walk in the park or dine in a cozy restaurant next door, drink dry white wine, and then return to the hospital, and there, sitting on the balcony, Henry waits for Katherine to finish work and will come to him all night and her marvelous long hair will cover him with a golden waterfall.
They consider themselves husband and wife, counting the married life from the day Katherine appeared in a Milan hospital.Henry wants them to actually get married, but Catherine objects: then she will have to leave: as soon as they begin to arrange the formalities, they will follow her and separate them. She is not worried that their relationship is not officially legalized in any way, the girl is more worried about an unclear presentiment, it seems to her that something terrible can happen.
The situation at the front is difficult. Both sides have already run out of steam, and, as Henry said, an English major, the army that the last to realize that it was exhausted will win the war. After several months of treatment, Henry is ordered to return to the unit. Saying goodbye to Katherine, he sees that she is underestimating something, and is barely seeking the truth from her: she has been pregnant for three months.
In the unit everything is going on as before, only some are already alive. Someone caught syphilis, someone washed down, and the priest still remains an object for jokes. The Austrians are advancing. Henry is now turning his back on such words as “glory”, “valor”, “feat” or “shrine” - they sound simply indecent next to the specific names of villages, rivers, road numbers and the names of those killed. Sanitary cars now and then get into traffic jams; refugees retreating under the onslaught of the Austrians beat to the convoys of cars, they carry miserable home belongings in wagons, and dogs run under the bottoms of the wagons. The car in which Henry rides constantly bogs down in the mud and finally gets completely stuck. Henry and his henchmen go further on foot, they are repeatedly fired upon. In the end, they are stopped by the Italian field gendarmerie, mistaking the Germans in disguise, Henry with his American accent seems especially suspicious. They are going to shoot him, but the lieutenant manages to escape - he jumps into the river from the run and swims under water for a long time. Having gained air, dives again. Henry manages to get away from the chase.
Henry understands that this war is enough for him - the river seemed to have washed away his sense of duty. He ended the war, Henry tells himself, he was not created to fight, but to eat, drink and sleep with Katherine. He no longer intends to part with her. He made a separate peace - for him personally the war was over. And yet it is difficult for him to get rid of the feeling, which happens with boys who have run away from school, but cannot stop thinking about what is happening at school. When he finally reached Katherine, Henry felt as if he had returned home - so good to him beside this woman. He didn’t have this before: he knew many, but always remained lonely. A night with Katherine is no different from a day - it is always wonderful with her. But the war was left behind, and various gloomy thoughts climbed into my head, like the fact that the world is breaking everyone. Some at the break become stronger, but those who do not want to break are killed. They kill the kindest, and the most tender, and the bravest - indiscriminately. And if you are neither the one nor the other, nor the third, then you will be killed too - only without much haste.
Henry knows: if they see him on the street without a uniform and recognize him, then they will shoot him. The bartender from the hotel where they live warns: Henry will come to arrest him in the morning - someone told him. The bartender finds a boat for them and shows the direction where to sail in order to get to Switzerland.
The plan works, and all autumn they live in Montreux in a wooden house among the pines on the side of a mountain. The war seems to them very distant, but from the newspapers they know that the fighting is still going on.
Katherine's birth is nearing, not everything is safe with her - her pelvis is narrow. Almost all the time, Henry and Katherine spend together - they have no need for communication, this war seemed to have brought them to a desert island. But now an exit to the world, to people, becomes necessary: Katherine's fights begin. The patrimonial activity is very weak, and they undergo a cesarean section, but it’s too late - the exhausted child is born dead, and Catherine herself dies. That's right, the devastated Henry thinks, everything always ends with this - death. They throw you into life and tell you the rules, and for the first time, when taken by surprise, they kill you.No one is allowed to hide from life or death.
