During WW2 in neutral Sweden, young sailor Bo, son of a railway stationmaster, comes home from the Navy and reminisces a childhood accident. At age twelve, he ran away in a steam locomotive together with a blind 10-year-old girl. The engine derailed, and the little girl got killed. Feelings of guilt haunt Bo even in his courtship with Eva, a beautiful local girl. In Stockholm, Bo sees a nightmare about plotting to kill his roommate Göran together with Göran's flirtatious girlfriend Susanne. In a third act, Eva and Bo are married and living on a remote island off Stockholm. When it's time to give birth, Bo has to row the stormy seas and fears again that he will cause another death.
Anders Wahlgren's two-part drama documentary provides an insight into how everyday people lived during the era when the great warship Vasa was constructed, almost four hundred years ago. We follow the fates of various people during trying times in the shadow of a war - which would later be called The Thirty Years' War. At the time, Stockholm was a small and dangerous capital, with barely fitteen thousand inhabitants. The Stockholm shipyard, run by Margareta Hybertsson, was the largest workplace in the city. It took more than three years to complete this comprehensive dramatization.