Plymouth, 1941. As sirens blare all around, the Shawbrook family take refuge in a packed shelter. Bombs have already begun to fall through the night sky when they realize their infant son, Freddie, has been forgotten in the rush, left to sleep in his crib. Terrified, Vera, his young mother, races to find him and bring him to safety.

The next morning, air-raid warden David Shawbrook returns from his watch to find the shelter pulverized, and his family seemingly all dead. Dirty footprints inside their home betray the looters who have rifled through the house.

Meanwhile, Maggie waits alone for her husband. Since the death of her infant son, she passes her days at home with neither joy nor aim. But not this morning. For this morning her husband has brought home a child, found abandoned in the aftermath of the terrible raid—a child she is sure is the one she held in her arms so many months before.