In 1941 Malaysia, the advancing Japanese army captures a lot of British territory very quickly. The men are sent off to labor camps, but they have no plan on what to do with the women and children of the British.

Mr. Gray is the new Resident in Charge of the Welcome Islands in the Indian Ocean. The Islands are full of life, but the only other Europeans are the "sanctimonious, psalm-singing" brother-sister missionary team of Martha and Owen Jordans, and the Honourable Ted - a hard-drinking, womanizing social outcast whose English family pays him to stay away. Martha and Ted become an unlikely team when cholera threatens the islands and they must do their best to stop its spread.