Sydney, 1942, the year of the fall of Singapore, the bombing of Darwin and the surprise attack on Sydney Harbour by Japanese midget submarines. Surely Australia is doomed to fall to the Japanese. In the confessional, Father Frank Darragh hears how his community is changing -- how the very real fear of invasion is leading people to challenge the teaching of the Church. Especially vulnerable are those women whose husbands have been captured. Facing the future alone and unprotected, they are at risk of succumbing to the charms of more subtle invaders -- American servicemen. When one of Father Darragh's 'fallen' parishioners, is found brutally murdered, she takes on the character of a victim of war in the mind of the naive young priest. His obsession with her fate, leads Darragh on a dangerous journey of personal discovery -- one that puts his own life at risk.