During World War One, thousands of young men went overseas to fight, but over 500 nurses - a quarter of New Zealand’s nursing workforce - volunteered to serve as well. Like the young men, they set off with high ideals but found themselves living and working under conditions they could never have imagined. They had to cope with heat, dirt, disease and terrible injuries, as well as anti-colonial attitudes, and society’s expectations of what women should and shouldn’t do.