1942. Singapore is falling to the Japanese army. English musician Norah Chambers places her eight-year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe. As the island burns, Australian nurse Nesta James joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard HMS Vyner Brooke. After only two days at sea, the ship is bombarded and sunk. Nesta and Norah reach the beaches of Indonesia, only to be captured and held in one of the notorious Japanese POW camps, places of starvation and brutality. But even here joy can be found, in music, where Norah's 'voice orchestra' transports the internees from squalor into light. Sisters in arms, Norah and Nesta devote themselves to the women's survival while discovering their own