To the World War Two battlefield casualties evacuated from bloody Pacific beachheads to the clean white beds of hospital ships, the Navy nurses who care for them seem like angels. For young war widow Ensign Anna Donovan, however, the unrelenting stresses of this duty soon begin to chip away at her morale, eventually revealing a side of her that's anything but angelic. Far from family, friends and fiance, at sea aboard the hospital ship USS Compassion, she's horrified to find herself irresistibly drawn to Mark Whitmore, a charismatic but married chaplain. Eventually her need for respite from the endless stream of young men torn apart in this enormous conflict overrides loyalty to the man she's engaged to back home in Maine. As the war reaches its bloody climax, Anna soothes her conscience by rationalizing that all that really matters is that she performed her duty steadfastly and honorably. The rest - the private, personal falls from grace - will fade when she resumes her interrupted civilian life with the man she truly loves. But is this a plan, or just a delusion? And when she leaves the ship, the friends she served with, and the man who shared her illicit passion, what will happen in that bright postwar future so many men died to win for her?