After a perilous journey from Nazi-occupied Prague (described in 'The Dragontail Buttonhole'). the penniless Jewish Kohut family reaches Paris. Willy Kohut, married to the beautiful Sophie, is a dispossessed fabric merchant desperate to join his parents in London.

Hoping to find a way out of France, a country preparing for war, Willy signs up to join the re-constituted remains of the Czechoslovak Army based in in the south. Sophie, still in Paris with her 3-year old son Pavel. finds part-time work at the Café Budapest, run by an old Hungarian couple. Pavel falls seriously ill at the very moment the German armies invade France. She and Pavel flee south to meet up with Willy, only to be swept up --- when the French surrender --- in a massive evacuation organized by the Royal Navy.