Critically acclaimed as a television masterpiece this is a stunningly impressive adaptation of Olivia Manning's tragic and poignant work. A young married couple, Harriet and Guy, are in Bucharest when WW2 breaks out and they are forced to leave the country, passing through Athens and ending up in Cairo. Harriet is persuaded to return home by ship, but changes her mind at the last minute and goes to Damascus with friends. Guy, hearing that the ship has been torpedoed, believes her to be dead, but they are reunited in the end. Against a magnificently photographed international backdrop, we follow their tangled love story and the characters; diplomats, literary types, spies, penniless royalty, gays, lesbians et al, that they come across.