An idyllic holiday for two youngsters and their grandfather on Scotland's most beautiful river, the Tay, contrasts violently with the life-and-death struggle of another member of the family and two fellow soldiers on and around the English channel as they strive to escape the clutches of a German Army advancing through France in the dramatic days of May and June, 1940. Follow their fortunes as the summer unfolds to reveal multiple shades of light and darkness, unrestrained happiness and the agonies that only war can bring. Finally, all are bound together by the unbreakable cement of history as another conflict, made distant by the centuries, rears its bloodstained head once more.