World War I. The soldiers of the twelfth company are yesterday’s men from the village of Chertukhino. Mikolay Mitrich Zaitsev, the son of Chertukhinsky shopkeeper, a young guy, recently promoted to ordinary warrant officer. His name is Bunny. He is a master at composing songs. Bunny is a kind and unrequited man: everyone (and even sergeant-servant Ivan Palych) treats him unceremoniously. Once, during a show at the Bunny, the commander shouted - because he was a platoon, Penkin Prokhor Akimych, red and pockmarked. Out of bewilderment, Bunny gave a break to Corporal Penkin, and in the evening he rushed to his feet and asked for forgiveness.
Rota comes with instructions. It says that soldiers will be dropped from ships so that they directly attack the Germans “from the sea”. Everyone is terrified. The company takes communion before certain death. But the operation is canceled. Soldiers believe the war will end soon. However, the company from the reserve is again sent to the front line, to the Dvina River.
In the dugout, Corporal Penkin tells the tale of the ugly king Akhlamon, who refused wealth, began to walk on the earth as a beggar and became handsome. Company life goes on as usual. One of the Chertukhins, Vasily Morkovkin, was killed at a window in the observation post. In the latrine, the batman of the Bunny, Anuchkin, was shot dead. And the company man, Palon Palonych, sprinkles Bunny for poetry.
A hare, one of the whole company, is allowed to go home for a visit. On the way, the Germans fire at him. He does not appear at the headquarters, where he must straighten out the papers about the vacation, and he is considered missing.
Company Palon Palonych (drunk as always) orders orderly Senka to bring a piece of German barbed wire from the other side of the Dvina. He boasts to everyone that he deceived the commander (brought the wire, but not German) and received an order for this.
Dvina spills and floods the trenches. Chertukhintsy (unlike many others) manage to escape.
The bunny, however, simply got lost and, without going into the headquarters, went home. Joyfully greeted by his old believers, parents, Mitry Semenych and Fekla Spiridonovna. But bad news awaits him. Klasha, the daughter of Nikanor’s father, whom Zaichik loved and married with in the Old Believers ’chapel“ in the spirit and in the light ”, married another rich man. Even the Bunny learns the terrible story of Pelageya, the wife of Prokhor Penkin. The husband went to war, and the blood was raging in his young wife. She tried to seduce the old father-in-law. The father-in-law dies, and Pelagia, having sinned with the shepherdess Ignatka, is expecting a child. Then she kills herself. Drunk Deacon Athanasius at night in the forest stumbles upon her body and tells tales of a terrible woman with a rope. Bunny, going into the forest, also sees the body of Pelagia. There he meets a gypsy, who advises him to beware of water.
The coachman Peter Yeremeich decides to escape from Chertukhin: he does not want to give his horses to the front. Pyotr Yeremeich takes the Bunny to the city of Chagoduy. There they drink with Deacon Athanasius, who is going to go to the king and say that he, deacon, does not believe in God.
In the town, the Bunny meets Klasha. She leads him to her bedroom. But her father-in-law comes, and Bunny is forced to run through the window. Mikolai Mitrich is in the carriage along with Deacon Athanasius. He says that there is no God anymore, but only worshiped - each nation has its own. The train comes to St. Petersburg. The deacon is disappearing somewhere. And Bunny meets in St. Petersburg with a gray-haired woman who looks like Klasha. A woman leads Bunny home, but he runs away and straight from there to the station - to the front.
Bunny does not tell anyone that he was at home so as not to tell Penkin the terrible news. Mikolai Mitrich gives the clerk Pek Pekych a bribe and finds out that the company is now under investigation ("took away half a water!"), And he, Zaychik, is presented for promotion.
Company Palon Palonych almost lost his mind: speeches began to lead strange about devils. And the Bunny came to him under a hop and herds argue about faith (in the words of Deacon Athanasius). The company officer was then taken to the hospital, and Bunny became the commander instead.
Soldiers are moving to new positions. Opposite them, in the middle of the Dvina, is an island on which the Germans managed to gain a foothold. Senka, a former batman Palon Palonycha, comes up with an ingenious device that blows up the “islet” Germans.
On the Feast of the Intercession, soldiers are brought gifts. They drink tea with the commander. Bunny goes for water to the river, and the Germans, oddly enough, do not shoot at him. On the other side, the German also goes for water. Bunny grabs a rifle and kills him.
After this incident, the Bunny is not in his own dugout. He fumbles for him a little sugar German who aims at him. And the Germans really open a strong fire. All soldiers consider this retaliation for the commander’s deed. Ivan Palych after a night spent under shelling finds a bunker destroyed by the Bunny. He pulls out a half-dead commander from there, hoping that he will receive an order for this.
