Matter of fact Judy Corder, a 26 year old doctor, is travelling with her cousin Stewart on a slow ship to Singapore. Incarcerated with their fellow passengers, at 107 degrees in the shade, they fall in with the hearty Mrs Mardick and Arnold Ainger, and intriguing, somewhat pompous married man. Then plague breaks out. Under cover of darkness, all four flee the ship for the terrors of the jungle. In the depths of the jungle, civilisation abandoned, the true natures of all four assert themselves . . .