Evan Bonner is a deserter from the Vietnam war; he is on his way back to America to give himself up when he meets Deirdre McCluskey, a beautiful if petulant model. The two make an unlikely couple, but once in France the magic of Paris works its charm and these two vulnerable people finally find each other.

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat USS San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature soon clash with the 'rice-bowl' system which runs the ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver at China Light Mission.