Germany 1944. The ripe wheat gently sways in the warm summer breeze. A car drives along a country road into a lay-by.

Three people get out of the car, one an attractive woman, who staggers and sinks to her knees as she's led away. One of the men, an officer in the German Wehrmacht, draws his Luger pistol. We are about to witness and execution. The woman lifts her head to reveal her bloodied face and sightless eyes that stare at the bright blue sky. Three shots shatter the silence.

Thirty years on we find Julius, a man in his early sixties on a Cray boat off the coast of Australia. A deckhand hauls a cray pot on board when he screams as a fishhook snares his hand. Julius wants him to cut the hook out, but the deckhand refuses and they head back to the distant coast.

At that moment Peter, in his early thirties, gets a lift from a priest. On a deserted road the car crashes but the driver and passenger are uninjured. Peter decides to walk to the nearby fishing town.

In the bar of the local hotel a drink Peter attempts to steal a bottle of alcohol, when Julius offers him the job of deckhand. Fate has thrown them together. Julius makes him work hard and their relationship becomes tense. In the night the apparition of a young woman appears to Peter. Lit by moonlight and framed by the sky, the woman reaches out to Peter. Horrified by the woman's injuries he wakes Julius. Peter's revelation disturbs him.

At sea, Peter is in the water untangling a rope from the propeller, when he sights a shark. He cries out to Julius to help him into the boat. Before he does Julius demands he tells him who told him about the woman he claims he saw. Peter, to survive makes up a story.

Later, Julius wants to know who Peter is. He tells Julius he's an orphan with no family. Julius reveals that his name is Smith, but before he came to Australia it was von Brand. Peter is stunned because it's also his name. He tells Julius his parents were killed in Germany during the war.

Julius realizes that Peter's mother was his sister. Haunted by his actions that resulted in his sister's death, Julius tries to end his life but is saved by Peter, the nephew he never knew he had.
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