In 1914, overcomeing the restraints on women of the age, Vera Brittian becomes a student at Somerville College, Oxford. When World War I breaks out, follow the sacrifice of her brother Edward, her fiancé Roland Leighton, and their friends Victor and Geoffrey who serve at the front lines, she decides to leave her college to work as a nurse of the Voluntary Aid Detachment tending the wounded and dying in London, Malta and France.