Teen-aged Ben and Ray Shores run away from their farm in north Florida in 1918 to play professional baseball while many older men were serving in World War I. Ben parlays his baseball career into successful speculation in the 1920s Florida land boom and later on Wall Street. After his wife drowns in a 1928 hurricane, Ben takes a freighter to Australia, where he meets sugar plantation owners and other business men. A cricket bowler teaches him the grip and delivery of the googly, which he adapts to develop a new baseball curve. When his baseball career ends, he emigrates to Australia, where he becomes a highly successful business man, flying his own airplane to supervise his far-flung construction contracts. Through his assistance in hunting down a Japanese submarine that had shelled his home of Townsville in 1942, he becomes a minor war hero. His story is narrated by Ray, a University of Florida graduate and teacher and Ben's assistant in the land speculation. Ray's happy marriage is juxtaposed to Ben's own tragic courtship and marriage.