Harman locates Strachan, who is emotionally torn, and sends him back to Australia by steamship, without telling him Paget's whereabouts.Ĭonscience forces Strachan to inform Paget of the situation by airmail, and she remains in Australia, waiting. At the same time, however, Harman is in England, looking for Paget, whom he has just learned is not married, as he had feared. Learning from the well diggers that Harman amazingly survives, Paget goes to Australia to find him. Nevertheless, Paget sails to Malaya and builds not just a well but also a primitive community center as a thanks offering to the women. Staid Strachan is shocked and inspired by the story but has qualms.

Paget and her companions, who are forced to watch, trudge on in horror and shock. In retribution, Harman is crucified, flogged, and left for dead.

One of them, Joe Harman, barters stolen gasoline to obtain the drugs and soap the pitiful women need, and then steals some prized chickens belonging to the sadistic Japanese commander. Only 15 of the 32 women and children with whom Paget starts out survive.ĭuring the march, they meet two Australian POWs impressed to drive trucks for the Japanese. After declaring her intention to return to Malaya and build a well for natives who kept her and fellow prisoners alive in the war, Paget details three years of forced marching around the peninsula. It is held in trust until she is 35, but the elderly, widowed trustee can raise capital in an emergency. An uncle's inheritance saves her from this. She alone returns to England, where she lives the boring life of a secretary in a small leather factory. She and her brother Donald work in Malaya before the war. When Douglas Macfadden dies in Scotland, his lawyer, Noel Strachan, finds his sole-surviving heir, 27-year-old great-niece Jean Paget. A Town Like Alice tells the story of a plucky young Englishwoman who becomes a legend in Malaya during World War II, inherits a fortune, marries her true love, and wisely uses her money to transform an Australian ghost town into a thriving community.

A town like alice nevil shute summary