While the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

As the son of a bureaucrat in Singapore, Bryan Lockhart was raised within society that cherished conformity to social norms and service above all else. It is a culture which has no place for someone like Bryan who is unable to answer the question; ’What am I, a boy or a girl?’ At age 14 he turns to Madam Leu, a Chinese woman who caters to the eclectic needs of pre-war Singapore. She introduces him to a Malay transsexual. While the two outcasts form a friendship that transcends race and class, Madam Leu draws Bryan into a world in which men of wealth pay well to satisfy their desires. When this is discovered, Bryan is exiled to a boarding school in England. Upon completing his education, he goes to Australia where he seeks to begin a new life for himself until the coming of war with Japan and the posting of his unit to Singapore leads to a very different conflict as he once more follows a path that puts him at odds with the society he must defend and tests his loyalty to his fellow officers.