In 1939 in Northern Kenya, after an unpleasant incident with a German, a young Italian girl decides to throw in her lot with a young District Officer, Jack Harding. She is actually half-English, and when her language skills are discovered by the Kenyan authorities, she and Jack, with the help of a group of Rendile tribesmen, thwart an attack by the Italians. During their adventures, the relationship between Francesca and Jack grows. Jack enlists to fight the war and is rapidly promoted and posted to Burma, where he is captured by the Japanese and imprisoned in a POW camp. Meanwhile, Francesca, who hates school in Nairobi and is expelled, turns his large house into a successful hotel. She is summoned to London in 1946 by Sir Richard Harding as Jack, his youngest son, has now been declared, 'Missing believed dead'. Francesca convinces Sir Richard that Jack may still be alive and she travels to Burma determined to try to find him.