Alfa Ndiaye is a Senegalese man who, never before having left his village, finds himself fighting as a so-called "Chocolat" soldier with the French army during World War I. When his friend Mademba Diop, in the same regiment, is seriously injured in battle, Diop begs Alfa to kill him and spare him the pain of a long and agonizing death in No Man's Land. Unable to commit this mercy killing, madness creeps into Alfa's mind as he comes to see this refusal...

One morning of the Great War, Captain Armand whistles the attack against the German enemy. The soldiers rush forward. In their ranks, Alfa Ndiaye and Mademba Diop, two Senegalese riflemen among all those who fight then under the French flag. A few meters after having sprung from the trench, Mademba falls, wounded to death, under the eyes of Alfa, his childhood friend, he more than a brother. Alfa finds himself alone in the madness of the great massacre,...