When the United States declares war on Germany in 1917, Fred Williams, a millworker in the little town of Homewood, leaves his sweetheart, Mary Phillips, enlists, and goes to France. At a variety show, Fred recognizes one of the dancers as Mary, who has joined the Entertainment Division; and she agrees to marry him the day before a troop advance. Too late to convey the fact to Fred she learns that the marriage ceremony was performed by a deserter who had disguised himself as a chaplain. At the front, Fred receives a letter from Mary telling him all, adding that she is with child and awaits his return at Loure; in desperation, he volunteers to contact American troops cut off between a farmhouse and Loure; he is successful but is wounded by a shell on his return and is assumed lost. When peace comes, Mary returns home with her child and is turned away by her father; at the burial of the unknown soldier in Arlington, however, Fred, a victim of shell shock, is reunited with Mary, and the parents are reconciled to the young couple.
