1943. World War Two. A Russian convoy fights its violent, wreckage-strewn course across the Arctic Circle towards Murmansk. Only one ship survives the coffin ship Charon and her complement of misfits, captained by the buccaneering Edward Trapp: professional scoundrel, blackguard without merit. The Charon staggers from one sub-zero crisis to the next in the captains pursuit of ignominy and golden cargo, to the enduring embarrassment of the British and United States Navies ...