World War I enters the summer of 1916 with the perceived failure of Jutland and the bloody defeat on the Somme, where the British Army was forced to beg for truce to bring their forty thousand wounded in.
The survivors of the four carefree midshipmen who entered the war in '14 are now different men, promoted too rapidly and responsible for the deaths of those who follow them, with no alternative other than to obey the orders of Butcher Haig and the venal government in London.
The war on land and sea is at best at stalemate and the sole hope for the fighting men is to survive until eventual rescue by America. For the while, they must struggle forward and hope to not kill too many of the men who blindly obey them, trusting them to do their best.