Here is a hospital story with a difference, for it is set on an island near the Burma coast where a white doctor and two nurses, with a native staff and few facilities, waged a never-ending war against tropical diseases, parasites and an utterly exhausting climate. Pat, recently out from England, and not very experienced, would have found it hard going in any case; but it was made much tougher by the fact that Dr. Mark Bradlaw seemed to find her intensely irritating, and even sometimes carried his disapproval to the point of reprimanding her in front of the patients. And as if that was not enough to bear, the beautiful widow with whom his name had been linked turned up in Pengola and began to throw her weight about in a ladylike but thoroughly determined way.