Told in flashback, this movie opens with a scene of a seventeen-year-old boy, Francis Andrews (Sir Richard Attenborough), being brutally lashed during a police interrogation, in which the boy thinks back to what placed him in this situation. He betrayed the crew of a smuggling ship whose master, Richard Carlyon (Sir Michael Redgrave), was also his guardian. Some of the smugglers are caught, but Carlyon escapes, and then begins his search for Andrews. Carlyon was quite fond of the boy, but knew him for a coward. Andrews seeks refuge in in the cottage of a girl named Elizabeth (Joan Greenwood), who urges him to give testimony against the smugglers in court. He summons his courage and does so. Carlyon, catching up with Andrews, recognizes this as an act of courage, and does not take revenge on him. Carlyon is eventually caught, but despite the police torture, Andrews does not identify him, and he goes free, while his guardian faces the gallows.