An elderly British woman on the east cost of England fancies that if she sits on a specific pew in the ruins of an old church, she can speak with and guide the steps of the soldiers stranded on the beach at Dunkirk. Her alleged insanity deepens when she decides to confront the Nazi advance in the flesh, with the Queen of Heaven at her back. With a touch of Paul Gallico's The Snow Goose, a healthy dose of the supernatural is added, as the village tries to bring her to her senses.