The author describes the brief but disasterous Malayan campaign of 1942 and the long, appalling captivity that followed For almost four years his Japanese captors - believing that only death could redeem those who had 'dishonoured' themselves by surrender - subjected their 40,000 prisoners to a pitiless regime of starvation and slavery They, in return, drew on all their resources of hatred, humour and defiance in order to survive