An English nurse and an American soldier have an affair on the Italian front during World War I; Hemingway's semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories are dramatized; a writer lies feverish and delirious from an African hunting accident wound and feels like a failure as he reflects upon his life; a group of expatriates lives in Paris pursuing love, sex, and alcohol but happiness eludes them; a jockey wins a steeplechase race he had agreed to throw.