Westbound, Warbound

In 1939, as the S.S. PollyAnna sails from Cardiff on yet another tramping voyage, the world is shifting into war. By the time the ship has discharged her coal, Chamberlain has warned Hitler that Britain will stand by Poland-and Poland is invaded on the day she enters the Suez Canal, bound for Calcutta. It’s September 1st, a Friday; on Sunday the 3rd, when Britain declares war, PollyAnna is ploughing south through the Red Sea. The crew has no idea that a fortnight earlier, the German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee left Wilhemshaven, slipping away into the Atlantic under cover of darkness. Her mission is to seek out and destroy all the British and Allied merchant vessels she can find. Five days out of Cape Town, PollyAnna is westbound for Montevideo, Uruguay-which, as it happens, is just where the Graf Spee is heading.