Jim (Peter O'Toole) is a promising young English merchant seaman who rises to Chief mate under Captain Charles Marlow (Jack Hawkins). However, Jim is injured and left at Java. When he is fit again, he signs on with the first available ship, a dilapidated Cargo ship called the S.S. ''Patna'', crammed with hundreds of Muslims on Hajj. When a storm threatens the leaking ship, the crew panics and takes to the lifeboats, abandoning their passengers; in a moment of weakness Jim joins them.