Pengola is very far from being a paradise island — it only boasts one hospital, an arrogant English doctor and two nurses, to fight an unending war against disease, parasites and an utterly exhausting climate. But Nurse Pat Millay, recently out from England and almost wholly inexperienced, resolves to stick it out rather than stay at home brooding over her lost love, Terry. It takes a shock — the impact of Dr Mark Bradlaw's abrasive personality — to jolt Pat out of her stunned state, but by then the past has caught up with Mark in the form of the beautiful Fane Ermston, the girl everyone thought he ought to marry!