A dentist buys a small yacht and takes his two children on a cruise of the Mediterranean. His ex-wife stows away to keep an eye on the children and the inevitable happens.

Fr. Hugh O'Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His activities become so large that the Nazis decide to assassinate him the next time he leaves the Vatican.