Edward Salter is a shy, reserved lawyer whose life is transformed by the outbreak of war in 1914. On his way to fight in the Gallipoli campaign, he befriends the charming and quietly courageous Theodore Thorne. Together they face the carnage and slaughter, stripped bare to their souls by the hellscape and only sustained by each other and the moments of quiet they catch together. Thorne becomes the crutch whom Edward relies on throughout the war.

​When their precious leave from the frontline coincides, Theo invites Edward to his late parents’ idyllic estate in Northamptonshire. Here Edward meets Thorne’s sister Miranda and becomes entranced by her. Edward escapes the broiling, fetid charnel-house of Gallipoli to work on the staff of Lord Kitchener, then on to the Western Front and post-war espionage in Constantinople. An odd coolness has descended between Edward and Theo. Can their connection and friendship survive the overwhelming sense of loss at the end of the war when everything around them is corrupted and destroyed?