Sailing for France at the height of the Great War, a group of young women from the Smith College Relief Unit are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions, all of which immediately go astray. Tn this sweeping novel from the author of The English Wife, the chateau that was to be their HQ is a ruin, the villagers they meet are desperate, and they must contend with German shelling, French bureaucracy, and British army hardheads—not to mention their own rivalries—if they are ever to pull together.