Jack was born around 1880, the result of an adulterous one-night stand by his mother, the perpetrator of which was facially scarred for life by her husband.

After the family disintegrated, Jack went to Croydon to live with his upmarket prostitute aunt. Later, while working in a local butcher’s, he promised to take one of his customers to a local dance and they became very fond of each other, but, during World War One, as a Sergeant, he saw her killed by a German sniper.

Soon, wounded on the Somme, Jack came to the attention of a young nurse, but his school friend, Michael, gets killed in the same battle and it falls to Jack to bury him. He promises Michael that he will live a life for them both.

Seriously wounded at Arras City, Jack is repatriated home in time to see his English fiancée die tragically – after which he remains in a drunken stupor for months.

After seeing a vision of Michael, who reminds Jack of his promise to live for them both, he asks the nurse from the field hospital to marry him. Will Jack be able to keep his promise?