Pyotr Maltsev

A small vessel is caught in a storm at sea. With no fuel and no radio, Boatswain Pukhov — an amateur pigeon breeder — sends two pigeons carrying a message about the tugboat’s dire situation. One of them, named Pilot, reaches land. The crew is rescued, and Pilot is given to a schoolboy from Moscow who took part in this difficult voyage.

To save her family from disgrace and hunger, a young dowerless girl gets married to a rich old man, only to turn into an unscrupulous kept woman who forgets her close ones.

Petya meets his father from a partisan detachment in the Odessa Catacombs.