How can an external conflict lead to an internal conflict and vice versa?.

How can setting affect the plot and characters of a novel?.

Phillip's father tells him it's because they have no such weapons on the island.

Phillip asks his father why they don't bomb the submarines.

There's some distance now between his mother and father. Phillip was only 7 when they came to the Caribbean.

Phillip's mother often talks about their home in Virginia.

His dad brought them, though, so he could work for Royal Dutch Shell as an expert in refineries – all for the war effort. Phillip's mom, he tells us, did not want to come to the island from her home in Virginia.Phillip's mother comes in and tells him not to ask so many questions.His dad doesn't know but says he wants Phillip and his mother to sleep downstairs. Phillip asks his dad if the Germans will shoot at them tonight.Phillip and his dad used to be pretty tight – hiking and fishing and sailing – but he's been pretty busy lately.Phillip's dad, also named Phillip, gets home from work from the refinery.Phillip's mother, unlike Henrik's, is a nervous woman.Phillip returns home and his mother is upset when he tells her where he's been.An army officer orders everyone off the Queen Emma bridge.We learn that Phillip and his family are American. Phillip says he bets the Navy is on the way.Phillip finds Henrik's know-it-all attitude a bit irritating. Henrik, whose Dad is with the government, tells Phillip that almost nothing is left of Aruba.The boys then head to a bridge over the channel, but there are no ships there.The boys head to the fort, where they had played when they were much younger, pretending to defend the island from pirates or British invaders. While his mother is busy, Phillip takes off with his friend Henrik van Boven, who is Dutch.More information: our narrator's name is Phillip.

He wants to go to Fort Amsterdam to look for enemy U-boats (German submarines) and shake his fist at them with the other people, but his mother tells him he has to stay home. The narrator is not so much scared as excited.The submarines are attacking oil refineries on Aruba, the island west of Curaçao, and some small oil tankers.The narrator, we learn, was asleep in his house in Willemstad.Learn more about the history of the island here.) (Shmoop note: The Dutch aren't native to the island, though they have controlled it since 1634. The novel opens with the arrival of German submarines in the waters surrounding Willemstad, the capital of Curaçao, an island inhabited by the Dutch off the coast of Venezuela.

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