In 1922 ('Year eight of the Great War of Empire'), recon pilot Flinder, an Australian seconded to the RAF, crashes in Tunisia, carrying photographs of a great horror the enemy are creating in a lake in Tunis. Rescued by men of the New Zealand Maori Battalion, she finds herself co-opted into their mission to eliminate the threat in Tunis. As they travel across the desert, she must confront her own racism and the terrible act she once committed under its influence.