Bert decides that winning the Rondo, an annual wheel barrow race on the cricket field, is a matter of life or death: if he wins, then Joe will be kept safe.

Joe's brief leave from the front has come to an end. He has tried hard to conceal his shell shock from the family, but Grace knows that something is badly wrong.

It is 1920; the war is over, and the village tries to come to terms with its loss. The date of the unveiling of the war memorial draws close and, as the inhabitants debate how best to honour their dead, divisions open up at the heart of the community.