There are two standing orders in my life, God's and the Army's. Both bolt me together. These two moral imperatives dictate the life and destiny of young David Andersen as he battles the obscene and inhuman horrors of the Korean War - Korea, where it seemed to Andersen that the ice in the streams would never melt and that spring was gone forever - where the young subaltern learns that battle, like his childhood, is a solitary business. He struggles to earn the respect of his men, to preserve standards of decency in an increasingly desperate , bloody and terrifying combat with a seemingly invincible enemy. He gets used to death; he kills and prays for forgiveness and learns to be content in his spiritual isolation until he is befriended by Tom Fleetwood, an English officer. All that Andersen learns in Korea, on his return to the family home in Victoria, he shares only with Elinor, a neighbour's wife - with whom he falls in love.