Events are set in December of 1981: mobs of buyers descend on an already depleted supermarket. Most of the film happens on a ship carrying Poles on a cruise. Most passengers, however, have already decided to jump ship when it docks in Hamburg. One of the passengers is a dissident high school teacher sent abroad by Solidarity. He is carrying addresses of underground printing offices, contact points, etc. to sympathizers abroad in case the labor union is banned in Poland. He is under surveillance of the secret police, anxious to get their hands on the info. When the ship is in the middle of the Baltic sea, martial law is declared and the ship is militarized. The captain announces he will turn and return the home port. Many anguished passengers put the life vests on and jump into the sea, where they are picked up by two German ships. The teacher, however, decides to return to Poland and continue the struggle for freedom.