The main characters are Antonio Corelli, an Italian army captain, and Pelagia, the daughter of the local physician, Dr Iannis. An important event in the novel is the massacre of Italian troops by the Germans in September 1943—the Italian Acqui Division had refused to surrender and had fought the Germans for nine days before running out of ammunition. Some 1,500 Italian soldiers died in the fighting; 5,000 were massacred after surrendering, and the rest were shipped to Germany, of whom 3,000 drowned when the ship carrying them hit a mine.