A cook for bridge constructors is told to collect food for dinner-Ritz style trout, Palmer house rabbit and a 15cm frosted cake. He sets off into the wide open spaces to collect the food, coming into contact with a mad hermit, who hates anybody seeing his daughter, before returning to cook dinner.

The story is set in Cambodia in the years following WWI. An evil count has come into possession of the secret methods by which men can be transformed into walking zombies and uses these unholy powers to create a race of slave laborers. An expedition is sent to the ruins of Angkor Wat, in hopes of ending the count's activities once and for all. Unfortunately, one of the members of the expedition has his own agenda.