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The plot concerns two young girls (Julie Nihill and Lian Lunsom) who marry brothers, both soldiers, one an officer (Philip Quast), and the other (Shane Connor) an enlisted man. Connor makes a play for Nihill, but so does her boss who rapes her one evening when she's working late. She tells Connor this and also that she is pregnant. He proposes to her and she agrees to marry him, however they are reprieved from actually testing the strain that having another man's child might have placed on the marriage by her miscarrying. Their honeymoon is interrupted by a national emergency which recalls him to duty. The other brother (Quast) is posted to Singapore where a life of indolence has it's effect on his wife in that she takes solace in the bottle. This creates some social tension that remains when the tour is over and they return to Australia. Exacerbating the situation is the clear class distinction between the ranks in the military which affects their families too. All this is painted with an exceptionally broad brush by the director Lawrence and the four young actors.
© The Australian
