In order to become a flight nurse, Cherry Ames, already a professional nurse of skill, compassion, and courage, completes six weeks of intensive training that prepares her and others to fly in winged ambulances to every American battlefront on the globe to places where wounded men need their help fast.

Her home base turns out to be in England, and when her childhood mentor, Dr. Joe Fortune learns of this, he entrusts Cherry with the story about an English family whose house had been bombed, killing the mother and leaving a small child to be cared for by her grandmother, Mrs. Eldridge. It was the behavior of the child's father, Mark Grainger, that disturbed Mrs. Eldridge sufficiently for her to have contacted Dr. Joe.

Now Dr. Joe turns over this mysterious set of circumstances over to Cherry, asking her to do all she can to help this family, while managing to be discrete.