C.S. Forester was wonderful at writing evocative seafaring yarns and this is one of his better stories. The film starts with couple of strangers who meet on a train and end up missing their connection and spending a few days together. Advance a few years and a powerful Nazi raider sinks a British warship and picks up the survivors. For one of them - "Albert Brown" (John Mills) the war isn't over and when the ship puts into a remote location to effect repairs, he steals a rifle and heads ashore from where he promptly takes pot shots at the repair crew. His plan is to delay the mending long enough for a pursuing Royal Navy flotilla to catch up and destroy the enemy ship. Walter Forde has assembled a strong cast of British actors - with a young Jimmy Hanley and Howard Marion-Crawford amongst them to keep the adventure moving along well, after a fairly slow start, that builds to an exciting denouement - and a question: could "Brown" be the result of that assignation many years earlier...?
