"In 1941, 15 year-old Australian-born Mary Nakashiba is arrested with her Japanese father and European mother in their home town of Darwin. They spend 3 1/2 years intered as POW. In 1955, Nakashiba is one of twenty-one nurses sent under the Colombo Plan to Kuala Lumpur, Malaya, to open the Lady Templar Hospital for turbercular patients requiring surgery. One evening, she meets her future husband, a Polish Rat of Tobruk, who is fighting the Communist insurgency in what was known as the Emergency. They return to Australia after Malaya is granted independence from Britain."--Back cover.