The Sea Shall Not Have Them

WWII. An RAF aircraft has had to make a crash landing in the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands. The four on board are able to make their way onto the flight's life raft, their landing however before they were able to send a mayday. Air Sea Rescue (ASR) has started a search for the downed men in they not having returned on schedule, with only scant information on which to go. While the story is told from few different perspectives, it focuses on two. The first is of the four men in the life raft, each who is dealing with their precarious situation differently both physically and mentally which is made all the more difficult with the inclement weather. Air Commodore Waltby, the ranking officer, has to convince the other three of the importance of getting the information he has contained in his briefcase back to London, even at the risk to their own lives, it to be destroyed if it looks that they may be captured by the enemies, which may indeed be the case as they are drifting uncomfortably close to enemy territory off the coast of occupied Belgium. The second is of the crew aboard Launch 2561 of the ASR, they who are facing their own multitude of issues both personal and with regard to this mission of finding the four men.