Frederick is a happy, untroubled boy with a secure future on his father's successful farm and without the slightest cloud on his horizon until his contented little world is thrown into turmoil, when he is cleverly seduced by Imelda, and then destroyed utterly by her murder of his baby son. Consumed with blind grief and guilt, he rushes to volunteer to serve in an army about to become enmeshed in the most horrendous war the world has ever known. His bad dream becomes a far worse reality, as he is wounded during the disastrous action at Gallipoli, and then has to endure the degradation and despair of battle after bloody battle through France and Belgium, wounded yet again, and far more devastatingly, as the war drags to an end. What distorted life he still has appears utterly bleak, and yet, despite everything, an unlikely love survives.