During his military service, a man meets a woman who works in the kitchen at the camp and they start a relationship. When the man is out on combat exercises, he becomes a witness to his Sergeant being paralyzed by a snake.

Rikard Adamsson, a young man dreaming of becoming a writer, lives a wild and dissolute bohemian life. A ferocious fighter with a heart of gold and a great taste for women. In the military service he gets in trouble, runs away, returns and is sentenced to prison. Inside he finishes his first novel. However, no publisher is interested.