Russia 1918. A band of 800 children, spending the summer in the Urals to escape the miseries of the Revolution, are cut off behind the lines and eventually forced to beg and steal for their survival as the harsh winter approaches.American newspaper editor, Riley Allen, working for the Red Cross as a press officer, hears about the children and heads a team to rescue them. Since they cannot go west back to Petrograd, he takes them east across Siberia to Vladivostok, but when the Japanese capture the town he is forced to think again. He hires a small Japanese freighter, fits it out to accommodate 900 people, and sails across the Pacific to San Francisco, then through the Panama Canal, up to New York and across the Atlantic to Europe. After an epic and eventful journey of over two years, the children cross the Finnish/Russian border and are returned to their parents.