Having crash-landed in remote China during World War II, Jim Carmody (Humphrey Bogart) becomes an aide to vicious warlord General Yang (Lee J. Cobb). But when he sees one of the general’s soldiers murder a priest in cold blood, Carmody adopts the dead man’s identity in a bid to escape. Reaching the American-run missionary hospital that was the priest’s destination, he falls for nurse Anne Scott (Gene Tierney) and attempts to save the endangered mission when General Yang appears on the scene.