He blew out a breath. “I’m…I’m in a jam, Charley. Can…can you help me?”
“If you tell me, I see what I can do.”
He sank down heavily onto a sack of cassava. “Before we left Selamat datan, I…I went back for the little girl. I brought her on board.”
“Ah so. This not safe.” I did not ask him what little girl. Frank Johansen and I had been having dinner ashore, and when the fire broke out, we’d become part of the fire brigade working desperately to put out the blaze.
“Think I don’t know that?”
“Where is she?”
“I hid her in one of the lifeboats. Charley…she can’t stay there.”
“No.” It would be too dangerous. “You tell Chetwood?”
He shook his head. “He told me to leave her with the Malay woman.”
“Why you not?”
“Puan Noor was going to sell Hildy to a Dutch planter. Charley, she’s only se
