Sealed Cargo

1943. In being denied conscription into the US Navy as deemed an essential worker, Pat Banyon, the captain of the Daniel Webster halibut fishing boat based out of Gloucester, MA, feels somewhat guilty about his lucrative business while many men his age are fighting in the war. Regardless, he is having trouble holding onto a steady crew partly due to the war, he having a core group who have long worked for him. His latest trip takes him reluctantly in the direction of Trabo, Newfoundland as he has agreed to provide passage to nurse Margaret McLean who is trying to make her way home. That reluctance is in the Grand Banks waters being filled with German U-boats which would not hesitate to sink an American fishing vessel. In addition to the ship's radio equipment being tampered with, they come across what Banyon initially believes is a ship attacked by the Germans. Almost appearing like a ghost ship, it is a Danish cargo ship (rum the primary cargo) called, translated, The Gaunt Woman disabled from a storm, they subsequently attacked by the Germans. The only surviving person aboard is its captain, Skalder, those other surviving crew members, an inexperienced lot, who abandoned ship. After providing assistance to Skalder and The Gaunt Woman to safe harbor, Banyon begins to believe that something is not quite right with the story behind The Gaunt Woman, his suspicions in combination with the issue of the radio tampering. If Banyon is able to discover what is actually behind his suspicions, he will find that he and the crew of the Daniel Webster may get closer to the dangers of war than he ever anticipated.