The novel begins with the description of a group of soldiers gone to war. They try to cope in various ways with the horrors they experience each day but some of them can’t take it and run away. One of the soldiers who disappear in Cacciato and his friend, Paul Berlin, claims that Cacciato went to Paris. The Lieutenant decides to send the squad in which Cacciato was to look for him. The squad sees Cacciato after a few days of walking and Lieutenant Corson insists on going after him even though he is very sick.
The squad travels for five days without seeing Cacciato again. Then, they discover some of his belongings near the enemy border and the soldiers all agree that if Cacciato crossed the border, he is as good as head. On the sixth day, the squad sees Cacciato in the distance and the Lieutenant gives the order to shoot a warning fire. Cacciato continues however to walk unaffected in the opposite direction. One of the members in the squad trips over a wire and a smoke bomb is set off and all the soldiers panic and throw themselves to the ground.
The squad tries to make Cacciato surrender but is unable to so Corson decides to do everything he can to capture Cacciato while he is asleep. The first chapter ends with the squad getting ready to capture him but the chapter ends before the reader can find what happened to the mission.
The second chapter takes place a few days later, and Berlin watches the Chinese sea while thinking about Cacciato. Berlin thinks that Cacciato managed once more to avoid being captured but he can’t figure out what happened or how was Cacciato able to do it.
The third chapter takes place a few days after the second one and the team approaches Laos. They are slowing running out of water and food but Corson insists that they must follow Cacciato. Berlin has trouble keeping up with the rest of the squad and falls behind frequently. The other soldiers also question Corson’s judgment but continue to follow him anyway. The squad reaches after a few more days of marching the river separating Vietnam from Laos and they cross it without any problems. Then, they march for days without encountering any living person.
Corson collapse one day suddenly and Doc concludes that he will most likely die in a day of two. The soldiers vote on what they should do and decide to continue searching for Cacciato. Another soldier named Murphy leaves in the middle of the night and the squad continues without him.
In the next chapter, Berlin remembers his training period and how he was trained to survive both the boredom of being a soldier and how to fight. After a week, the soldiers were assigned to their squads and sent to battle. Berlin remembers his first day on the battlefield and how he had to board a helicopter to reach a distant place in the middle of the jungle.
During the nights Berlin spent on the battlefield, he used to fantasize about going home with a large number of medals and showing them casually to his father. Then, he thinks that he will one day be able to visit Europe and stay a while in Paris, learning the language and spending his time exploring the city.
The squad continues to go on Cacciato’s trail until they reach the savannah. There, they see three women with two buffalos and they kill one of the buffalos and then interrogate the women. The soldiers find that they are refugees running away from Saigon and that they are all related. The women travel West to escape from the war and the soldiers and the women begin traveling together.
The soldiers and the women talk about the war and how they have no way of knowing whether the war is over or not since they are traveling. Berlin feels attracted by one of the women named Sarkin and soon they begin talking about Paris and things and buildings they want to visit there. Corson plans to drop the women off in the next village but Sarkin asks to stay and goes to Berlin to convince Corson to let her stay. Shortly after that, the soldiers capture Cacciato.
In the ninth chapter, Berlin remembers when his team was ordered to clear out a tunnel and lost two of their men because they were shot. One of the soldiers was shot through the neck and the other was shot through the nose and the only thing the doctor was able to do was give them painkillers to make their passing painless.
In chapter 10, it is revealed that the soldiers were once again unsuccessful in capturing Cacciato but they found some maps left behind by him and were able to guess where Cacciato will be going. They decide to follow him and send the women on their way but when the women go on a separate road, the women and the soldiers all fall into a whole.
After that chapter, only one woman remains, Sarkin. As the soldiers search the tunnels, they stumble upon a man in a green uniform offering them food and his company. The soldier’s name is Li Van and the American soldiers interrogate him about the Vietnamese army and about their tunnels. Van shows them the tunnels and the American soldiers see just how well provisioned the Vietnamese are in comparison with them. The Americans tie Li Van to a chair and then ask about his history. Li Van was a soldier who tried to run away from the war but was captured and then sent to the tunnels, to never see the light of day again. Li Van was unable to help the soldiers get out but Sarkin argued that they must get out from the way they came it, that is the whole they fallen through. The soldiers then go on wondering through the tunnels blindly for what is seems like days. When they do get out, that are in a city named Mandalay and the soldiers go to a hotel where they rent some rooms. Berlin and Sarkin share the same room and the next day they go explore the city while looking for Cacciato.
The soldiers decide to search for Cacciato in bars and brothels even though they know that it is unlikely for Cacciato to be there. The soldiers continue looking for Cacciato for days until one day, almost by chance, Berlin spots Cacciato in the crowd, wearing monk clothes. When Berlin approaches him, two men catch Berlin and he passes out. When he wakes up, he is in a public park with Sarkin beside him who tells him that Cacciato went to Paris.
In chapter 16, Berlin remembers the times when he and the other soldiers spent their times just waiting. They even reached the point where they wished they could be in battle just to have something to do. When one of their fellow soldier steps on a mine and dies, the others are secretly relieved that something happened in the end.
In chapter 21, the soldiers all board a train from Mandalay to Chittagong and they search for Cacciato there. Caciatto is however nowhere to be found and what is more, the soldiers discover Cacciato’s empty bag and nothing more.
The soldiers reach Delhi and check into a hotel and there Corson meets a woman named Jolly with whom he falls in love. Despite knowing that Jolly has a husband, Corson still sleeps with her and is affectionate with her in front of her husband. Berlin is also getting closer to Sarkin and he enjoys spending time with her. The soldiers spend some time in Delhi but they never stumble upon Cacciat. One day however, Berlin sees a picture in the newspaper and they see Cacciato, on a train heading to Kabul. Corson then decide to follow Cacciato and in a few hours the men are all on the train to Afghanistan.
The soldiers reach Teheran on Christmas and there they are arrested. The soldiers blame each other for their arrest but it remains uncertain why they were arrested. They are however let go when Doc tells them that they are following a deserter and the man who arrested them even takes them out for drinks.
The soldiers are arrested a few days later and are labeled as deserters. This is dangerous because then the soldiers were in danger of being executed. Before the day when the soldiers were supposed to be executed, the escape miraculously from the prison, get into a getaway car and make it to Ankara. Then they reach Greece and they continue traveling until they reach Luxembourg. From there, they board a train to Paris and when they reach Paris they spend their time walking and looking for Cacciato.
After a while, Sarkin proposes that they buy and apartment together and Berlin agrees, going to talk with his superior. However, before being able to pack all his things from the hotel room, Corson comes to him and tells him that they need to leave because the French became suspicious of them. The soldiers all agree that the only way they can save their reputation is by finding Cacciato and proving that they were not deserters. When the soldiers do find the hotel where Cacciato stayed, they went there and Berlin was sent inside with the big rifle. Berlin fired a few rounds but it remains unclear whether he hit anyone.
In the last pages of the novel, it is revealed that everything happened in Berlin’s mind. It is suggested that Berlin killed Cacciato on the mountain when they first almost got him and to protect him, Corson lied that Cacciato deserted. Then, the battalion was sent to an observation post where Berlin spent his time thinking about the road Cacciato could have taken to reach Paris.
