After graduating from Trinity College, Oxford, Gavin is faced with the question of what to do with his life, mortified and terrified by his seeming inability to find his way in the world. When suddenly, his reality is turned upside down when Britain declares war on Germany after all of Europe is threatened by the German military juggernaut. This profound turn of events suddenly provides Gavin with the answer to his question. He enrolls in the British Royal Air Force (RAF), wanting to be a British fighter pilot to defend his country.
Training was brutal, but despite almost washing out of the very challenging RAF flight school, Gavin eventually emerges with his coveted wings as a Spitfire pilot, and is soon tossed into the iconic Battle of Britain. Wile in combat, a near-fatal crash following an aerial dogfight leaves him permanently disfigured and incapacitated, with severe burns to his hands and face, ending his military career as a Spitfire pilot and the privileged life that he knew.
Once discharge from the hospital, Gavin finds that he has been tossed on the scrap heap of life, as he tries to make his way in a seemingly uncaring and cruel world full of people who stare, gape and recoil at his severely disfigured appearance.
All alone, Gavin is faced once again with the question of what to do with his life, with so much promise taken from him. Most days Gavin passes his time sitting on a park bench feeding the ducks- where he stumbles upon an odd little girl named Sara who is grappling with painful struggles of her own. Over time, Gavin grows fond of Sara and offers to tutor her so she can improve her marks in school- a great source of distress to her. His gifted tutoring dramatically improves her grades, and ultimately those of her equally-struggling hardscrabble school mates, which leads Gavin to realize that he has finally found his calling and source of fulfillment in life, far from the august halls of learning of his beloved Oxford. But yet again, fate steps in to deal him a final blow, ending his life from the injuries sustained in his Spitfire crash. But he dies in a state of peace that he has never known, knowing that he has truly made a difference in the world to his ragamuffins, those who were most in need.