Redjack, the hated fish culler, awakens in the bottom of a heaving punt adrift on the Atlantic Ocean. Following the beating he took from his only son, he slinks into the inner bays. Jake, son of Redjack, is home from the failed battle for Suvla Bay in the Great War. With his family, he sails to Trinity Bay to fulfill a promise given to a friend who died in the hell of a Turkish trench. There, unbeknownst to them, they become afflicted with the Spanish flu by the mother of the soldier. On the way home, a fierce storm drives Jake deep into the bays for shelter, where he must come face to face with Redjack again. The virus they bring to their isolated island home changes forever the lives of those who remain.