Hardy is a young seaman down on his luck. He has no money and no ship, and then he gets caught up in a dockland fight and kills a man. Anxious to get a new ship and vanish, Hardy turns to his friend, the lovely Diane, a prostitute. Diane knows where to find the elusive, mysterious Man at the Top – the one person powerful enough to help Hardy. And then Hardy finds he did not know very much about the man he killed…