A 25 year old Australian, James Boyle, was one of thousands of prisoners of war who worked in inhuman conditions to build the Thailand/Burma railway. He was determined to record his experiences, and those of his mates, at the limits of human endurance. Boyle sacrificed precious scraps of food for a tiny notebook. In it, in great secrecy, he described in shorthand fragments of life on the railroad. When the remnants of his group were withdrawn to Singapore, he buried his notebook for safekeeping. Then, after the liberation in August 1945, he retrieved his firsthand account. Over four decades later, that small book of spidery pencil-markings forms the core of Boyle's story.