“Don’t you see,” Pete said again, after he had told his father everything that had happened, “it’s all my fault!”
Big Pete’s answer was a tired smile. “That’s quite a story you tell. Taken down to the bottom of the world by a bunch of pirates, but thanks to your Indian friend, you managed to get out of it okay. Wait, let me finish. You’ve been through enough to hold a man for a lifetime, and I mean that. So the result is that you’re all keyed up, and you’re blaming yourself for something, which…”
“It is my fault!” Pete cut in bitterly. “If I hadn’t gone down there with them, they would not have risked bringing their ships in. I was the one who could get them down safely, don’t you see? Because I was there they could try it, and because they tried it, Garr’s on a derelict ship in the Swar
