A tenacious British woman becomes a missionary and runs an inn for travelling merchants in China during the Japanese invasion and the tumultuous years leading up to the Second World War.
In the winter of 1944 the widow Vera von Hoff, her daughter Marion and the pony Prusse flee from East Prussia to the farmer Buddensiek in Lower Saxony. There Marion falls in love with doctor Meining not knowing that he is in love with her mother...