When newspaper reporter Helen Warner exposes the illegal activities of a gang of racketeers, she is threatened by the crooks, and, as a result, is sent by her boss on a vacation to China to avoid danger. On the ship to China, Helen befriends newsreel cameraman Jed Howard, but keeps her profession a secret from him. The two arrive in Shanghai just as war breaks out in North China, and, after seeing Jed depart for the front, Helen reports at the Shanghai office of her newspaper to manager Bob Laird. While getting her credentials to cover the war, Helen meets Chandler, a sinister fellow passenger travelling aboard her ship. Helen's suspicions are raised when both Chandler and Laird insist that Chandler had not been out of the country recently. While Jed and his Chinese assistant, Jimmy Riley, are in the thick of the action, Jimmy sees one of his countrymen fall and attempts to enter the battle, but is subdued by Jed, who rushes him back to Shanghai.