| Main centres: | 1-3 business days |
| Regional areas: | 3-4 business days |
| Remote areas: | 3-5 business days |
This is a spare, terse war novel, based on the French authors experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war, concerning the fictionalized building of a key bridge on the infamous 250-mile-long Death Railway (over 100,000 POWs and local conscripts died in its construction) between Siam and Burma during World War II.
British Colonel Nicholson, a stickler of a stiff upper lipper if ever there was one, insists his men abide by the rules when they are forced to surrender to the Japanese after the fall of Malaya. No one must attempt to escape, and the formal surrender must be done just so, rather to the bemusement of the Japanese invaders, headed by Colonel Saito, himself a strong believer in saving face.
When the savage Japs set the Brits to building a rail bridge across the River Kwai, Nicholsons contempt for their incompetence gets the better of him. To prove British superiority, he convinces Saito to let the prisoners redesign the edifice, and it goes ahead with astonishing speed.
Colonel Nicholson seems to have forgotten that his country is at war, and he unwittingly turns collaborator, which will have tragic consequences when a small, secret team of British saboteurs arrive to knock the bridge out of action on its gala opening day.
