Full of enthusiam and patriotism generated by the Great War, young Paul Cunningham enlists in the Canadian Army the day after his 19th birthday. His parents, of a well-to-do Toronto family, and vehemently opposed to his joining, but cannot stop their determined son's call to duty. 
 
With great passion and fanfare, Paul marches off to war and straight into a man-made hell on Earth known historically as the Battle of Somme - a battle so horrendous, that it consumed a whole generation of young men from both the British and German empires during the summer and autumn of 1916. 
 
As Paul struggles to cope with the horrors of war, he must also deal with a difficult commanding officer culminating in a showdown that threatens to be his ultimate undoing. Away from the madness of the front, two women, his beloved sister, Chelsea, in England, wait anxiously for him. To both he has promised to return.