It's the summer of 1968, the year of love and hate, of Prague Spring and Cold War winter. Two English students, Ellie and James, set off to hitch-hike across Europe. Somewhere in southern Germany they decide, on a whim, to visit Czechoslovakia where Dubcek's 'socialism with a human face' is smiling on the world. Meanwhile Sam Wareham, a first secretary at the British embassy in Prague, is observing developments in the country with a degree of cynicism. In the company of Czech student Lenka Konecková, he finds a way into the world of Czechoslovak youth, its hopes and its ideas. But, with the Red Army massed on the borders, how will the looming disaster affect those fragile lives caught up in the invasion?