This is one of the world's greatest stories of adventure, survival and escape. SlavomirRawicz was a young Polish cavalry officer. On 9th November 1939, he was arrested by the Russians and after brutal interrogation in Moscow's infamous Lubyanka prison and a farce of a trial, he was sentenced to 25 years' hard labour in the Gulags, for 'spying'. After a three-month journey to Siberia in the depths of winter, he escaped with six companions, realising that to stay in the camp meant almost certain death. In June 1941, they crossed the trans-Siberian railway and headed south, climbing into Tibet and, finally, freedom nine months later in March 1942, after travelling on foot for 4,000 miles through some of the harshest regions in the world, including the Gobi Desert. By the end, he weighed just five stone and 3 of the 7 had died.