High in the darkened bridge of the Swedish American liner Stockholm, seven hours and 130 miles east of New York City Second Mate Gunnar Nillson scanned the moonlit ocean. The big rectangular windows that wrapped around the wheelhouse gave him a panoramic view as far as he could see. The surface was calm except for a ragged swell here and there. The temperature was in the seventies, a pleasant change from the heavy humid air that weighed over the Stockholm that morning as the liner left its berth at the Fifty Seventh Street pier and headed down the Hudson River. Remains of the woolly overcast drifted in tattered shrouds across the porcelain moon. Visibility was a half dozen miles to starboard.

Nillson swept his eyes to port, where the thin, dark horizon line became lost behind a hazy murkiness that veiled the stars and welded the sky and sea.

For a moment he was lost in the drama of the scene, sobered by the thought of the vast and trackless emptiness yet to be crossed. It was a common feeling among mariners, and it would have lasted longer if not for the tingling in the soles of his feet. The power produced by the massive twin 14,600horsepower diesels seemed to flow up from the engine room through the vibrating deck and into his body, which swayed almost imperceptibly to adjust for the slight roll. Dread and wonder ebbed, to be replaced by the omnipotent sensation that comes with being in command of a swift liner racing across the ocean at top speed.

At 525 feet sterntostern and 69 feet in the beam, the Stockholm was the smallest liner in the transatlantic trade. Yet she was a special ship, sleek as a yacht, with racy lines that swept back from her long forecastle to a stern as softly rounded as a wine glass. Her gleaming skin was all white except for a single yellow funnel. Nillson luxuriated in the power of command. With a snap of his fingers the three crewmen on watch would jump to his orders. With a flick of a lever on the ship’s telegraphs he could set bells clanging and men scurrying to action.

He chuckled, recognizing his hubris for what it was. His four-hour watch was essentially a series of routine tasks aimed at keeping the ship on an imaginary line that would bring it to an imaginary point near the stubby red lightship that guarded Nantucket’s treacherous shoals. There the Stockholm would make the northeasterly turn onto a course that would take its 534 passengers past Sable Island on a straight shot across the Atlantic to the north of Scotland and, finally Copenhagen Harbor.