Phillip's mother didn't like black people. "They are not the same as you," she told him. "They are different, and they live differently. That's the way it must be." Phillip had never believed her before, but now. . . .

After all, Timothy was different. He was huge, and he was very old, and to Phillip he seemed ugly. He ate raw fish and believed in jumbis. And he was the most stubborn man Phillip had ever known.

But after the Germans torpedoed the freighter on which he and his mother were travelling from war-time Curacao to the U.S., Phillip found himself dependent on the old West Indian. There were just the two of them cast up on the barren little Caribbean island—three if you counted Stew Cat—and a crack on the head had left Phillip blind. The story of their struggle for survival, and of Phillip's efforts to adjust to his blindness and to understand the dignified, wise, and loving old man who was his companion, makes memorable reading.

From the dust jacket