Nico Rinaldi gets Dr. Matthew Heller to see his wife Silvia, born D’Alessandro, privately, about a tumor. This stirs doc’s memory how they met 15 years before, as young medical idealists, postulating for a relief expedition to (ficticious) civil war-ravaged Gomba in black Africa. After an Amsterdam prep course from Dr. François Francois, who warned they’ll age a lot in year, the Chicago laborer’s son and Italian industrialist’s daughter left for man-made hell in the tropics.