Even though he was only twenty eight and had joined the Stockholm barely three months earlier, Nillson had been on boats since he could walk. As a teenager he’d worked the Baltic Sea herring bats and later served as an apprentice seaman with a huge shipping company. Then came the Swedish Nautical College and a stint in the Swedish navy. The Stockholm was one more step in achieving his dream, to be master of his own ship.

Nillson was an exception to the common tall blond Scandinavian stereotype. There was more of Venice than Viking in him. He had inherited his mother’s Italian genes, along with her chestnut hair, olive skin, smallboned stature, and sunny temperament. Darkhaired Swedes were not unusual. At times Nillson wondered if the Mediterranean warmth lurking in his large brown eyes had anything to do with his captain’s frostiness. More likely it was a combination of Scandinavian reserve and the rigid Swedish maritime tradition of strict discipline: Nevertheless, Nillson worked harder than he had to. He didn’t want to give the captain a single reason to find fault. Even on this peaceful night, with no traffic,. near flat seas, and perfect weather, Nillson paced from one wing of the bridge to the other as if the ship were in the teeth of a hurricane.

The Stockholm’s bridge was divided into two spaces, the twentyfootwide wheelhouse in front and the separate chartroom behind it. The doors leading out to the wings were left open to the light southwest breeze. At each side of the bridge was an RCA radar set and a ship’s telegraph. At the center of the wheelhouse the helmsman stood on a wooden platform a few inches off the polished deck, his back to the dividing wall, hands gripping the steering wheel, eyes on the face of a gyrocompass to his left. Directly in front of the helm, below the center window, was a course box. The three wooden blocks in the box were printed with numbers to keep the helmsman’s mind focused on the heading.

The blocks were set at 090.

Nillson had come up a few minutes before his eightthirty watch to look at the weather reports. Fog was forecast for the area hear the Nantucket lightship. No surprise there. The warm waters of the Nantucket shoals were a virtual fog factory. The officer going off duty told him the Stockholm was just north of the course set by the captain. How far north he couldn’t tell. The radio positioning beacons were too far away to get a fix.

Nillson smiled. No surprise here, either. The captain always took the same course, twenty miles north of the eastbound sealane recommended by international agreement. The route wasn’t mandatory, and the captain preferred the more northerly track because it saved time and fuel.