A short novel, also written in play form, set in a small coastal town in an unnamed European country that has been invaded and occupied during the Second World War. The occupying soldiers expect an easy time, but the townspeople, including the mayor and the local doctor, respond with quiet and growing resistance. Steinbeck examines how both conquerors and the conquered are changed by occupation, and suggests that free people are hard to rule by force. Written during the war, it was meant to encourage resistance in occupied Europe.