Intertwined story of the lives of two women; an Englishwoman suffering abuse from her violent husband, and a Russian poet serving hard labour because of her subversive work.
An RAF ground crew, having committed an offence, is punished to guard all night an who an East Anglian airfield in the depths of winter. Gaining frostbite as a result, he's sent to recuperate in the nearby cottage hospital which is used for aircrew who have mentally cracked under the strain of bombing Berlin.
Two provincial newspaper reporters - one a young idealist starting out on his career, the other an embittered man who previously wrote for a failed national daily - swap views.
