During the summer maneuvers of 2020 near Novorossiysk, the armored personnel carrier of the commander of the Marine Corps platoon of the Black Sea Fleet, Senior Lieutenant Stepan Alekseev, suddenly stalls and begins to dive. Saving the fighters and leaving the car last, Stepan almost drowns. Having emerged from the last forces to the surface, the marine unexpectedly finds himself in icy water among the soldiers of the Soviet amphibious assault landed near South Ozereyka on February 4, 1943. Will the old Alekseev be able to withdraw the surviving marines from the encirclement, connect with the paratroopers of Major Caesar Kunikov and change the course of the entire Novorossiysk operation? After all, there, in his native time, he himself witnessed how military archaeologists found among the remains of one of the Soviet soldiers who fell on the bridgehead... his own penknife...