In the midst of WWII, an English musician, Norah Chambers, places her eight- year-old daughter Sally on a ship leaving Singapore, desperate to keep her safe as the island falls to the Japanese Army. Australian nurse Nesta James has enlisted alongside the Allied forces. As Singapore is overrun she joins the terrified cargo of people, including the heartbroken Norah, crammed aboard the Vyner Brooke merchant ship. Only two days later the Vyner Brooke is bombarded and sunk. Nesta and Norah reach the beaches of a remote island, only to be captured and held in one of the notorious Japanese POW camps. The camps are places of