Synopsis
Successful business man, John Thurlow, takes pride in his position as head of a shipbuilding firm producing ocean liners. His son, Jack, finds himself in conflict with his father's principles: a visit to the World War I battlefields has left him with a hatred of machinery and the impersonalisation it brings. Though initially supported in this by his sympathetic grandmother, his father's illness, and determination to have a Thurlow in the firm, eventually requires Jack to become his stand-in at the shipyard. Aboard a Thurlow ship on her maiden voyage, crisis occurs. Jack responds as he believes his father might have done, with tragic results.