Alistair MacLean · 1955 · sea

Alistair MacLean's 1955 debut, a classic of the war at sea. The battered cruiser Ulysses, her exhausted crew fresh from mutiny, puts to sea from Scapa Flow to shepherd convoy FR77 to Murmansk. Through savage Arctic storms, U-boats and relentless air attack, the ships are torn apart one by one on the worst journey in the world - a bleak portrait of men at the edge of endurance.

1. 1
   Scapa Flow

   From the great naval anchorage of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys, the light cruiser Ulysses, her crew broken by exhaustion and barely recovered from mutiny, puts to sea once more to escort the vital convoy FR77 through the Arctic.

2. 2
   The North Cape

   Rounding the North Cape into the Barents Sea, the convoy meets the full fury of the Arctic - blinding storms, mountainous seas and pack ice - even as German U-boats and bombers close in to tear the merchantmen apart one by one.

3. 3
   Murmansk

   Only a handful of ships crawl at last toward the Russian port of Murmansk, the survivors of a passage that has cost almost everything - a voyage that turned ordinary men into heroes, and then to something greater still.