South by Java Head
Alistair MacLean
 The shattered city of Singapore is surrendering to the advancing Japs. Picking their way through the smoking rubble towards the quay are a struggling party of refugees - soldiers, nurses and civilians. Dawn sees them far out to sea but with the first murderous dive bombers already aimed at their ship. Thus begins an ordeal few are to survive, a nightmare succession of disasters wrought by the hell-bent Japs, the unrelenting tropical sun and by the survivors themselves, whose hatred and bitterness divides them one against the other. - from back cover of 1961 Fontana edition