Beth, a courageous young mother and the wife of a soldier, travels with the army across the globe to Australia, India and Afghanistan, witnessing the hardships of the penal colonies and the horrors of war. Meanwhile, a young boy growing up in early-Victorian Liverpool yearns to become a soldier. Years later, his ambition fulfilled, he meets and marries Beth's daughter shortly before he leaves for the battlefields of the Crimea. Will life be different for the next generation of this family, or will history repeat itself...?