The novel is set at a prison camp where the inmates are allowed to go into town to work and earn money. At the start the camp is calm and collected. Then a man was sent to the camp as a punishment for wrongs he did and turned the whole camp upside down. The captain tried to stand up for his men and the inmates but was told as a warden he did not need a captain who was in his mind nothing but a figure head. Then this warden left under strange circumstances and the older man that should have been dismissed a lot earlier, all the warden's took pity on him, and kept him around. His first assignment was to get rid of the captain. This captain was stepping on too many toes to help everyone and the department could not take this type of behavior.