A German expedition is going to the Norwegian arctic islands of Svaldbard in late August 1939 (back then called Spitsbergen), trying to find proof of the theory that all land on Earth 300 million years ago was connected, before the land broke up into the continents we know today. Just days after arriving in the icy waters, the tense European pre-war situation gets more tense, when Germany then invades Poland, and the second world war starts. The expedition is German, and so is a couple of others, but the captain of the ship is Norwegian, and they also bring a Russian crew, and a Swede and a couple of Brits, one of them is even a Jew. Waiting to be contacted by their respective governments, since they now are all part of a German expedition in wartime, they continue their mission of finding proof of the German Alfred Wegener’s theory of Pangaea. The German government is then commanding them to commit a military operation to help sink a British war ship with 1200 soldiers, and ending the expeditions main goal. They are in a situation on a small ship from which they can’t escape.