None of the crew is particularly gratified when the British tanker, Rosa Dartle, is chosen to carry a cargo of industrial alcohol from Philadelphia to Russia. For these are the dark days of World War II when convoys are receiving the full attention of U-boats and the Luftwaffe. And when six American seamen are embarked to take passage to Archangel, there is concocted a human mixture as explosive as the liquid swilling in the tanks...