During the war, Joe Keller and Steve Deever ran a machine shop that made airplane parts. Deever was sent to prison because the firm turned out defective parts, causing the deaths of many men. Keller went free and made a lot of money. The twin shadows of this catastrophe and the fact that the young Keller son was reported missing during the war dominate the action.

The love affair between Chris Keller and Ann Deever, the bitterness of George Deever as he returns from war to find his father in prison, and his father's partner free are all set in a structure of almost unbearable power. The climax that shows the reaction of a son to his guilty father is a fitting conclusion to a play with electrifying intensity.