1960, Indonesia. The tropical paradise has suffered years of war, martial law and political upheaval which is soon to turn into economic depression and dictatorship. Nursing student Heidi West is so determined not to be offered up on a marital auction block by her mother that she accepts a post that no other student has been willing to take: a post as a surgeon's assistant off the coast of Java. The heat, the monsoons, the unrest and the isolation don't intimidate half as much as the man with whom she must live and work: The Dutch Doctor.