The sailing ship Mary Jane is Australia-bound with a mixed company of free settlers, militia, convicts and crew when she goes down in a cyclone.
During the storm, convict Billy Rose helps a boy. David, ashore on a nearby island. There they find a small group of fellow survivors — Jan Lindburg, his wife Eve and daughter Angie, a German family, an Englishwoman, Cathy Dunbar, and Sergeant Holt.
