September 1939, and the 2nd Westmorlands are mobilized for France. Among them is Second Lieutenant Adam Hardrow, ardent to prove himself in battle with the Regiment, as his father did twenty years before. War doesn't turn out quite as Adam romantically expected. But amid the endless trench-digging of the phoney war, the ultimately pointless push into Belgium, and the disastrous confusion of Dunkirk, Adam begins to learn about the realities of battle and the men he fights it with - and their wives and daughters , too...