Twelve-year-old Tom learns first-hand about honor, first when he is wrongly accused of lying at school, then when he faces the risk of losing a puppy he has come to love while helping his grandfather train hunting dogs, but writing to a new friend helps him sort his feelings and do the right thing.

Born in Shanghai, China, in 1936, Judy is an English pointer who finds her place on a English gunboat patrolling the Yangtze River, battling pirates, contending with the Japanese occupiers, and protecting her human shipmates--until they all end up in a Japanese prison camp in Sumatra at the beginning of World War II, where every day is a struggle to survive.