Events take place in the White Sea, 1942. New recruit Andrei Bulygin is assigned as an assistant machine gunner on a small ship that delivers soldiers and weapons to the front line. On the way back, German fighters sink the ship, leaving only Andrei alive. Having got out on the ice, he enters into an unequal battle with the cold and the German pilot von Bettger attacking him from the air...
For the first time in the history of navigation, two Russian ships Vostok and Mirny reached the shores of Antarctica. The conquests of the Bellingshausen and Lazarev expedition were then questioned by the maritime powers. And now, in the 40s of the twentieth century, a young Leningrad scientist Golovin, who spent many years searching for expedition maps, discovers documents from the naval archive in the German-occupied territory...
