The East-End of London in the mid-1950s. A group of children are play in a bombsite and in the streets around it, while workers leave the docks at the end of their shift. Two men walk along the narrow streets of the Docklands; one is tall and thin while the other is short and chubby. They communicate only in signs.
As they walk home, the children follow and jeer at them. At the same time two neighbours gossip about them. Once at home the two men wash and have dinner with their landlord's family. The tall one seems attracted to the landlord's daughter.
The two deaf-mutes walk through a lively local market, as the same children keep on mocking them. They try to scare them and finally take refuge in a pub.
It is the morning. The two friends are sit in the back of a van on its way to the docks. At work, they unload crates and barrels from ships. Meanwhile, the children play marbles, cards or football in a bombsite nearby. On their way back home, the two deaf-mutes find marbles left on the pavement. As nobody seems to be around they pick them up, but within seconds all the children run towards them and start harassing them again.
Back home, they have dinner with the family while outside the children draw mocking sketches of the two deaf-mutes on the walls. After the meal the tall one then decides to go out while his friend is resting on his bed. He walks to a funfair and wanders around the merry-go-rounds. Later, he joins his friend who is sitting on the edge of a bridge. They go to the pub, where a girl begins to flirt with the tall one. Later, he secretly brings her into his bedroom while his friend is asleep.
The next morning the two men walk to work. On the way they stop on the bridge where they met before. They have a cigarette. The short one leaves his friend alone on the bridge for a short moment. A group of children suddenly appear. Two of them silently walk toward the deaf-mute, who is sitting on the edge of the bridge looking at the cranes dredging the Thames. They push him off the bridge with a baseball bat and run away. A few moments later his friend comes back and starts looking for him as he is drowning just a few yards away.
