Fleeing the USSR
Erma was a 36ft 50-year-old Swedish sloop carrying 16 Estonians (including four children) who knew that returning to their homeland after the Second World War meant imprisonment or death. In the late autumn of 1945, they sailed from Stockholm to Norfolk, Virginia. With their food and water almost gone, they were blown off-shore by a combination of storm and calm.
When Heino came back from his watch, he groaned as he wriggled out of his overcoat. ‘Lumbago. I haven’t felt it for a couple of years, but this cold and wet brings it back. I must find
