Athenia’s Chief Officer Barnet Copland leaves Glasgow under uncertain circumstances in late summer 1939. Among the British liner’s 1,100 passengers are six people from disparate backgrounds hoping to escape the threat of war. In Germany, Fritz-Julius Lemp, a brash young submarine captain heads to sea eager to prove himself. Lemp torpedoes Athenia a few hours after England enters the war. Thrust into a conflict they believed they had escaped, passengers and crew face life-and-death decisions, and Copland becomes a reluctant hero. The story’s coda comes 20 months later when Copland and Lemp meet again in a fateful historic encounter.