As she cuts across the fields to take her father his lunch, Patricia meets Jacques. She is eighteen, he is twenty-six. She is pretty, with the fine manners of a young lady; he is a fighter pilot and a handsome young man. A full moon will do the rest on their second meeting. There won't be a third rendezvous: Jacques is sent to the front.

Patricia finds herself pregnant. The boy's rich parents accuse her of blackmail. Patricia and her father, the well-digger, will alone have the joy of welcoming her child. A joy that the Mazels will soon envy and seek to share when Jacques goes missing in action...