England, 1914. When recruiting officers come to her sleepy village and her brother enlists, Ellen knows that her life will never be the same again. She longs for something more than her life as a housemaid, at the beck and call of "the toffs" as her dad calls them. Ellen's brother returns home after losing a leg and through helping him, she realizes what she really wants to be - a nurse at the front. When her sweetheart is killed, it only makes her more determined to help. Despite huge opposition from her family, she goes to train in London, eventually fulfilling her dream by travelling to France and working in a field hospital till the end of the war.