It’ll be over by Christmas ... Young Billy Bowman and his mate Jack get caught up in the excitement when war is declared in August 1914 and leave their jobs on the farm to rush off and enlist in the Mounted Rifles—because the war would 'probably be over by Christmas'. We follow their journey from the Awapuni training camp to more training in the sands of Egypt before they finally get shipped out—without their horses—to fight at Gallipoli. and there they discover that war isn’t the big adventure they thought it would be.