Abridged. 5693.

Read by Graeme Malcolm.

Tangier, 1941 -- for Eric DeHaan, Captain of the Dutch tramp freighter Noordendam, life at sea has always been his great, but not his only, love affair. Recruited by Dutch Naval Intelligence while in the port of Tangier, DeHaan steers his ship, disguised as a neutral Spanish freighter, through a series of secret missions for British Naval interests, which include taking British commandos on raids against a German observation station in French Tunisia; floating in emergency convoys; transporting bombs from Alexandria to the beleaguered British forces in Crete; and installing a listening post on the southern coast of Sweden, across from German bases on the Baltic Slowly, the Noordendam becomes a ship of fugitives -- a former lieutenant in the Polish navy, a Greek stowaway from Crete, a Jewish refugee medical student recruited as ship's doctor, and Maria Bromen, a Russian maritime journalist -- all on the run and trapped on the seas until the war ends.