The story centers around Sgt. John Riley and 16 men of his United States Army battalion who (against military law) are whipped for "desertion" only because they had traveled—without an explicit permission—to the Mexican side of the border to fulfill their religious obligation to attend Mass (liturgy), and because they are thought to be "Papists" whose loyalty is ''ipso facto'' suspect in the eyes of their Protestantism commanders. Sgt. Riley, with regard for the safety and well-being of his men, releases them at gun-point from the lash. He escorts them across the border to Mexico to hopefully find at Veracruz, Veracruz a ship back to Ireland, only to be violently captured by the revolutionary Juan Cortina as enemies of Mexico. Riley, wounded in his thigh, is nursed by Cortina's woman Marta. As Cortina considers what to eventually do with Riley and his men, news arrives that the Mexican–American War, and if they are captured they could be hanged. Because of this, the Irish deserters are presented with the choice of joining and fighting on the side of the Mexican revolutionaries under Cortina, or be executed by him as enemies of his country.
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