Travers, Robert J. 20th Meridian

Tense, violent story of a large, westbound North Atlantic convoy, focusing on the fictitious freighter S.S. BRANTEN which is carrying a cargo of Scotch whisky to the United States. That cargo precipitates a series of events aboard the ship which result in death for three crew members as well as the psychological collapse of the BRANTEN’s alcoholic 1st Mate. In a gripping section, the BRANTEN’s convoy is attacked by a German U-boat wolfpack halfway across the North Atlantic (at the title’s 20th Meridian), and shortly thereafter the freighter’s engines give way. Abandoned by the convoy and wallowing without power in a gigantic storm, the BRANTEN and her crew struggle to make the repairs necessary to continue their voyage — all the while ready to abandon ship should she be sighted (and torpedoed) by the roaming Nazi submarines. Though the ship ultimately gets underway again and rejoins her convoy, the price paid in lives has been a heavy — and probably unnecessary — one. Travers’ writing is taut, and his shipboard detail so clearly rendered that it is evident that he himself had much experience as a merchant mariner during the Second World War.