Blood Alley

Captain Tom Wilder is seized by Chinese Communist forces and imprisoned for two years. He is freed through bribery and by disguising him as a Soviet army officer.

A large Chinese man escorts Wilder to the countryside and transports him to the village of Chiku Shan. The purpose of the escape is not disclosed to Wilder.

Village leader Mr. Tso explains a plan to evacuate nearly 200 residents to Hong Kong. Wilder is recruited to pilot a stolen, wood-burning stern-wheel riverboat for the mission.

The Chief Engineer Tack, a U.S. Navy-trained marine engineer, helps with stealing the steamboat. Wilder oversees the vessel's preparation and it is re-christened with the village's name.

Wilder meets Cathy Grainger, an American woman whose father was a medical missionary. He shares the brutal news that her father was executed by the Red Chinese after an unsuccessful surgery on a political commissar, and Cathy struggles to believe him.

The villagers prepare by raising the harbor bottom with stones to trap approaching patrol boats and secretly amassing weapons. They intend to cause the patrol boat to run aground at the channel mouth as the escape proceeds.

The villagers lure the patrol boat into the harbor, trapping it there. Wilder and the refugees flee down the coast on the stolen ferryboat, bluffing their way past a PLA Navy destroyer.

The flotilla sails under cover of fog and only at night, slipping past patrols. They hide for days in shoreline reed marshes as they head south toward freedom.

The Feng family sabotages the escape by poisoning food and water and later tries to retake Chiku Shan during a heavy storm. Their plans are thwarted by Wilder and the villagers.

A shortage of firewood, drinking water, and boiler water forces the ship to anchor in the Graveyard of Ships at Honghai Bay. Wilder orders scavenging to keep the engine and crew alive.

Cathy goes ashore and returns after learning of her father's death. She grapples with the truth and the emotional toll of the mission.

Red Chinese destroyers shell the Graveyard from a distance and dispatch power boats to search for the ferry. The refugees fear capture as the search intensifies.

To avoid detection, the villagers pole and tow the riverboat through miles of marshland toward the open sea. Tack restarts the boiler and Wilder resumes steering toward Hong Kong.

The refugees reach Hong Kong and are greeted by the whistle and sirens from ships in the harbor. The voyage ends with a triumphant arrival.