On a long voyage home from the West Indies to Baltimore and then onward to England during World War II, a British tramp steamer named the SS Glencairn carries a rough-and-ready crew who live for the moment. At their head stands the consensus leader, a middle-aged Irishman named Driscoll; close behind him are a young Swedish ex-farmer, Ole Olsen; a spiteful steward nicknamed Cocky; a brooding Lord Jim–like Englishman named Smitty; and a burly, utterly dependable bruiser, Davis. The crew is a motley mix—fun-loving, hard-drinking, quick with a joke and quicker with a quarrel—yet the camaraderie is real, and their shared life at sea binds them through seasons of sun, spray, and strain.
One sultry night in a West Indies port, the captain confines the men to the ship, but Driscoll has arranged a boatload of local ladies for a private celebration. The crew carouses, laughter and music turning to chaos as a drunken brawl erupts, and the promised provisions for the women are abruptly denied. The next day the Glencairn sails on to collect its cargo for the return voyage to England, and the mood shifts as the crew discovers the cargo is high explosives. A moment of rebellion flickers, quickly suppressed by the captain’s authority, and the voyage proceeds with a tense quiet beneath the surface.
Suspicion shadows the voyage as Smitty’s aloof, secretive manner fuels fear among the men that he might be a German spy. They assault him, restrain and gag him, and force him to yield the key to a small metal box tucked in his bunk. When they pry open the box, they uncover a packet of letters from Smitty’s wife, revealing a hidden life: Smitty has struggled with alcoholism and was dishonorably discharged from the British navy. The revelation compounds the tension aboard and adds a weighty human dimension to the men’s rough camaraderie.
In the war zone as they near port, a German bomber dives out of the sky and the Glencairn is shaken by machine-gun fire. Smitty is killed in the attack, a casualty that starkly punctures the crew’s bravado and hardens their resolve. They reach England, battered but intact, and all but a few decide not to sign on for another voyage aboard the Glencairn. Instead, they vow to help Ole return to his family in Sweden, whom he has not seen in ten years, clinging to a sense of duty and kinship that has sustained them through their worst days at sea.
Yet the lure of easy money and a chance for one more night out proves irresistible. An agent for ships seeking crews corners Ole, luring him with the promise of steady work and a grand time ashore. He drugs Ole’s drink, and with the conniving help of accomplices, Ole is shanghaied aboard another vessel—the Amindra. Driscoll and the rest of the crew, now inebriated and enraged by what has happened, mount a daring rescue, but not without cost: Driscoll is clubbed and left on the Amindra as the others force a hasty escape.
By dawn the Glencairn’s crew staggers back, drained and bruised but bound by loyalty, to sign on for another voyage if fate allows. A newspaper headline later reveals the grim final act of the Amindra, sunk in the Channel by German torpedoes, taking all on board with it. The sailors’ brief flirtation with fate ends as they come to terms with the quiet aftermath of their choices—each man stepping back into a world of duty, livelihood, and a stubborn hope to rebuild what violence and fortune have shaken.
