The story begins in Peking (now Beijing) and portrays accurately the Australian naval presence in the Boxer Rebellion in China 1898. A young officer falls in love with a Chinese girl, and buys her a beautiful jade and diamond ring as a demonstration of his love. He endeavours to obtain permission to marry her, but is killed during the last days of the Rebellion. The girl finds herself pregnant and goes to an American Mission (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel) to have the child, and is completely accepted as one of the family. When the Mission is closed and she cannot obtain permission to go to the USA, the ring is given to the wife of the Head of the Mission, because of her love for the woman. It is to be a love ring, only given to a person deeply in love.The Love Ring goes from China to the United States, then to Oxford and Greece, and back to China. Finally, the ring is taken to Australia, where the young officer's family is located. Essentially, there are...

This is a work of fiction, and the central characters in the story, Mark and Faith, are not intended to represent any person, living or dead. As any sport enthusiast knows, the winner of the 100 metres at the 1956 Olympic Games was Jon Henricks, who also won a gold medal in the 4 x 200m freestyle relay. Apart from these facts, there is no parallel in the lives of Mark and Jon.The names of the other athletes, Kevin O'Halloran, Murray Rose, John Devitt and so on, and the times in the events have been retained to add authenticity to the story. In no way is this novel meant to detract from the brilliant performances in 1956 of the then world's greatest sprinter, Jon Henricks.As for Mark's coach, Terry Somerville, there was such a coach, who produced at Clovelly, Sydney, some of Australia's best sprinters, such as Jack Campbell. Because he is largely a forgotten man in Australian swimming and yet contributed a great deal to the sport, his name was utilized in this novel as...