The principal character in The Cay is Phillip Enright Jr., an eleven-year-old boy who is shipwrecked as he returns to the old family home in Norfolk, Virginia, from Willemstad, Curacao. Early in the novel, Phillip considers war a game only slightly more serious than the pirate raids he stages with his friends. After German submarines attack the island, he disobeys his mother and visits the harbor to look for enemy ships. A typical child, he is upset at the prospect of returning to Virginia with his mother, insisting that he will not leave his friends. When their ship, the S.S. Hato, is torpedoed and Phillip finds himself alone on a raft with Timothy, he is filled with self-pity, concerned only about the head wound he suffered while abandoning the sinking Hato and his separation from his mother and father. At first Phillip behaves irresponsibly, demanding...