1941

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     “I’m attacking.” The piece of paper that I have been holding in my hand, god knows how long, says. And this time, it is Hallie. The same words that Tom sent haunted my nightmares are now real again. And I can’t do anything. I just watch how those wooden blocks are moved around the top of the map. 

     I briefly wonder, are they the same ones that we used last time? Is one of them Arios’s counterpart? I did not let Hallie take it, even I could have, but she would know even after all these years.

     “Sir...” Mary Willard, who is now working in my office, approaches me.

     “Yes?” I try to sound normal. I have to look confident and strong, but how could I?

     She holds out the stack of papers. She tells me what is in them when she hands them to me “Henrietta Hopper and Charles MacIntosh inform that they have just lost visual on Warlock and that they are announcing their last coordinates. They all are..all the ships are repeating it. It is almost like they are yelling...”

     “Yelling” I repeat bitterly. I know what they are doing. I feel their hopelessness because it is what I am feeling. 

    “Yes..” This time Mary’s voice broke. “They insist us to send help to her” This time she does not even say Warlock’s name. Like it would jinx what they are trying to do. “What do we answer them?” She asks.

     I notice how around me is a bubble of silence when my staff is trying to hear my answer. 

    “Don’t they know that Ransome asked it already!” It comes out with a burst that has nothing to do with Mary. It’s easier for me to speak from Hallie using her fake name.

    “Yes...but…”

    “Don’t you think that I would have sent them any help if there could have been what to send!” I almost yell. I have not slept in several days, not after all started to go wrong and early this morning we lost Warrick, Warlock’s sister ship and I can’t believe that it was just five hours ago.

    Hallie’s convoy has been harassed relentlessly from the start. She has been asking for an air cover, but I don’t have anything to give. Our resources are spread thin. After seven days, from 59 ships, there are only 19 left. And the full wolf pack has been after them as soon as they were far enough for the air attacks. Our intelligence says that the White Wolf, Manfred Muller, one of the war’s deadly heroes, is there too and that he is after Warlock. There has been a strong rumour that Warlock, who has now earned the nickname Ghost and her own fame, would be on every u-boats hunting list. Hallie knows it. We talked about it just before she left. She was worried that Warlock’s presence would bring them more trouble than gain, and she might have been right. But Warlock is now the perfect bait and she will use it. She will do anything to give her convoy a chance to survive. Just like her father did. But Hallie is more alone than Tom was. Hallie’s convoy lost her three escorts early on, leaving Warlock and Warrick to be their only defence. And now Warrick is gone too and I’m afraid that she is after vengeance, which is never a good thing. At least Tom had Chimera, who disobeyed Tom’s orders and turned back to look for survivors. It is the only thing why Alex and others are alive.

     “Yes, sir,” I hear Mary say. She has stood without moving until now. It was then when I notice how pale she is as she turns away. 

     “Mary…” I say and she stops. “Tell them...“ I swallow. I don’t have the strength to make it an order when I nail the last nail to Hallie’s coffin “Tell Henrietta Hopper...tell them all to come home” It isn’t denial for help, or giving up on Hallie and Warlock. It is just a plea not to let Warlock’s sacrifice be for nothing.

    I see faces looking at me and Mary, who finally understands what my words took from me. She straightens her back and even gives me a smile “Yes sir” She too tries to be brave, for my sake.

    10 hours later, I sat alone in my office. I can’t let my staff see me like this. My hands shake and I’m on the verge of tears that I did not even cry when Tom went. The poured and untouched glass of whiskey sits on my right. I can't even get that down. We haven’t heard anything from Warlock. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I try to reason that it is too soon. That there are a million reasons for the silence. She will come back. She has to. How else can I tell this to Alex, Annie, or the boys? How I can live after this? 

    I know that at this moment, Hallie’s convoy, all 19 ships that are left, are already in safe waters. All those 10 hours they yelled relentlessly and openly Warlock’s last coordinates. Everybody knows about Warlock now, and the resentment for my lack of action is already brewing. And like this wasn’t enough for Charlie MacIntosh, he drove away two corvettes that I finally could send to escort them the rest of the way home. Charlie MacIntosh’s note was clear. You left us alone. There was only one who needed the help, and she was the only one who defended us. We managed without you. They would be arriving in two hours and then I would hear it straight from their mouths.

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***

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      It’s now 3 hours after Charlie MacIntosh left from my office with five other merchant captains. They had been haggard six aiming for the kill. Red-eyed from missed sleep, unshaven and smelling of cold, salty air, had told the conditions that they had endured. And they did not have given a shit about the navy and our thin resources that had taken away from me the planes that had promised to them or my admiral braids on my sleeves. How ever Hallie could have worked with these men? 

     One of them, Rowan Naggle, captain of the Irish Queen, had cursed me in the foulest curses that I had ever heard. Bracchus’s captain David Subcombe had joined Rowan Naggle with a more lively tongue. When Prescott Stafford from Tom Sawyer had quite pleasantly wished me to the deepest hell. Charlie MacIntosh and Alliance’s captain Thomas Creedy had been those who mostly had been talking. Demanding heatedly navy to take action and go search for Warlock or there will not be convoys anymore. Only one who had been quiet and last to leave had been Beagle’s captain Harrold Capstan, seventy-year-old seadog, with whole life experience backing his every action. He had stopped by the open door of my office, that Charlie MacIntosh had banged open when he stormed out just moments before. Harrold’s calloused hand on the door handle had stopped its movement when he had caught it from banging shut again. I felt his judgement resting heavily on my shoulders.

     “Harrold…” I had started, ready to make a plea to calm others down before I had a full mutiny from all the merchants that I had in my port, but he had shaken his head.

      “I’m with the others in this, Charles. We have known each other for a long time. For all of our sakes, this can’t be over like this.” 

      Harrold’s words hit me hard when I understood what he means “What can I do?” I asked, seeking his guidance.  

      “Hope. Pray that they are alive. But in the meantime, find them.” With that, he had left, leaving the door open, where I saw my staff watching me. They heard all that had been said and they were shocked by the captain’s demands and what it could mean, but I also saw pity. The one thing I really don’t need. 

     And that is how Alex came to be sitting here now. 

   “What do you mean Alex? Can’t you..” I make with my hand a vague gesture in the air “Sense her? Feel something!?” My voice is full of desperation that I see on Alex’s face.

     “It does not work like that,” Alex says. His drawn face tells me that he is not quite honest. He has his own ghost too, and I’m not going to be the one to dig them out.

    “Whatta bloody hell it’s worth for then!” I spat and Alex shooks his head. We never have known the true nature of the oath. “I let her down…” I confess suddenly. “I let her down,” I repeat quietly. 

     I hear Charlie MacIntosh’s accusations ringing in my ears like he would be again standing there. “You could have ordered us to turn back before it was too late. You left us alone. You left HER alone!!”

     I haven’t still slept, and it’s starting to take a toll on me. 

    “It’s not your fault,” Alex says, he too, is speaking quietly. He knows how this works. 

    “Yes, it is,” I say. I know I am picking up the fight, as I know that sitting here is way different than being out there. I have been there too and there is a point, how many deaths you can take before you do something like Tom and Hallie did? I just thought that I could handle this, but with Hallie, I don’t have the same kind of self-discipline than I have with my boys. I never had. I think it’s because of Tom. Hallie is like him, more reckless. 

     I notice Alex watching me closely. Neither one of us wants this to escalate into disagreements. 

     “You know,” Alex starts, “I don’t regret any action I took that day. Or any action that your brother did.”

     I try to progress what Alex is trying to say. Is this about the Oath? “Are you saying that it was a joint decision?” 

     He takes a breath without letting it out. “I’m saying that they will stand together. That, that crew. Hallie’s crew..” He huffs his lungs out “Are probably more capable for this than we ever were.”

    That is a big confession from Alex and I have never asked him what happened when he found the Warlock and its prison break crew. What he did to get them to come back. 

    “If there is any chance, or not…” Alex continues and lets out a chuckle like remembering something that I’m pretty sure had to do with Hallie’s crew “They will make it thru.”

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***

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     “Sir! Sir!!” It’s Mary Willard running into my office, almost tearing the door from its hinges, when she stops her forward momentum using the door handle as her anchor. Before I can say anything about her bursting in, she waves the message in her hand. “She has been seen. She has been..” Mary shooks her head and gulps her lungs full of air and continues to give her almost incoherent statement “The Halifax, the minesweeper. They have seen a ship like... Warlock, coming slowly. Sir..” She stops when I rose up. “She made it!!” 

    I’m out of the door before she gets to finish. Three days. It has been three days of unknowing. What took those merchants to come in 10 hours has taken them seven times longer. I try to keep my hope small. Maybe it isn’t Warlock, maybe Halifax got it wrong. Maybe.. but I still run out onto the street.

     My driver with my car is already waiting in front of the door. It must be Mary’s doing, but when I stepped in, I saw the gaze that the man gives me and the way he speeds up; I know then that he has been ready for this to happen. 

     We get thru the gates without stopping and I notice how my palms are sweating. Around us is a dark grey mass of ships. It isn’t that early, but the sun has been stubbornly keeping behind the heavy clouds. I look at my watch, it’s 09.11 and I took a quick calculation. If Halifax was where she should be, about 40 minutes from the harbour, doing her round. The heavy fog that had been hanging over the waves since yesterday is still there and would make identification hard. So maybe the ship that they had seen was about an hour away and then the message got uncoded, delivered to me… 

     “Where do you want me to park, sir?” My driver asks, adding to my calculation one more factor and I know then immediately where I should be. 

     “Tom, you son of a bitch” I sent silent words to my brother “If this is your doing..” But out loud I almost say; there, where the last time, but I stop myself in time and give my driver the instructions to drive on.

      The déjà vu feeling is strong. Except for the place where the Chimera was last time, is now empty. For a second, fear hits me. The emptiness of the place even surrounded these ships, feels vast. 

      This time, this has to end differently. Halifax has to be right. 

      I shook myself away from my morbid feelings and step briskly out into the cold air just to notice that I don’t have my coat with me. If my calculations are correct, anything within half an hour and we know. I can survive without my coat for half an hour.

      47 minutes later comes a careful question from my driver, “Sir?” And it makes me angry.

     “No!” I deny him “We wait” I watch my clock. The hell with my calculations! The hell with the clock! Halifax did it saw something. I have to believe that. 

     “What if…” My driver tries again. It is enough that he got me to sit back inside the car. I’m not leaving. I start to say it to him and a couple of other words, but just then a low moan comes from the fog.

      We both scramble out of the car. I desperately seek the familiar figure, but the stubborn mist does not move like it is an unbreachable barrier between my reality and the other. My heart bounds to my ribs.

     “Wasn’t that..?” My driver asks slowly. I hear his disbelief and then the sound repeats again, this time more loud, more confident “Isn’t that old Dixie, sir?!” He says “But..how?..” And I know his wonder. Old Dixie is a steamer, built somewhere last century. She is now serving as an accommodation ship. She has her steam boilers but they haven’t been used in decades, and I have heard her use her whistle only once when the last war ended. And she can’t use it, not without steam, but the booming beastly moan repeats a third time, and this time it does not stop. And then more higher whistle is there with Dixie. Blowing several times, over and over again, waking the ships in the harbour. I hear how the ships still further away are starting to join in one by one. And from the deck of the Henrietta Hopper, who I now notice is closest to us, comes shouts as its crew is running to the railing.

     “What’s happening?!” 

     “There! You see!?! Do you see!?!”

      I see men pointing toward the mist. I still can’t see anything from my level, and then Henrietta Hopper’s whistle hits us as she joins the chorus when someone on its bridge sees the reason for it. Some of the men start to whistle their own tunes while the others start laughing and jumping with it as more ships join in.

     “Bloody hell!” I hear a whoop from my driver as he jumps down from the car’s bumper, where he had climbed to see better and dives inside. 

      Seconds later I too see how a dark figure is emerging, agonizingly slow thru the greyness as my driver hits the honk. 

     “She made it, sir! She made it!!” I hear my driver repeat laughing when I stare at the familiar but yet almost unidentified figure of Warlock.

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***

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     I look at Hallie, who sits opposite me in my office. It is barely two hours after when she and Warlock came back. It’s a wonder that she does not just fall over. She looks tired and awful. I tell her that. Even though I’m still with aw that she is really here. 

     Her mouth quirks and the lines around it deepen. “I lost twenty men, fifteen injured.” 

     I nod. What Hallie had just told, it is a miracle that anybody is alive in that hulk that she brought back “They say White Wolf was not there” I tell her. Not to diminish her losses, but she needs to know it.

    She does not look surprised. Not all our intelligence is reliable. “They still did a good job. And Warrick is gone” Pain in her voice is hard “He was there,” She says with determination “I know it.” 

    “Hal..” I start, but Mary comes in bringing the tea. Its warm scent fills the room and Hallie’s stomach crumbles. We all hear it but don’t say anything, and Mary leaves quietly. 

    Hallie brushes her face. Her gold braids are so dark and worn that they barely are visible from her sleeves and the woollen overcoat that she came is not hers or neither is the blood I think I saw in it. “When was the last time you slept?” I ask. 

     She laughs bitterly. “Other than dosing in a chair? Before this all started. You know how it is”

     I knew, but I knew it to be different, too. I notice her watching me.

    “Ah,” She says and stands up. Her movement is impatient, even hostile. “Already? So what’s the punishment?”

    “It’s not..” She whirls around and I stop.

    “Am I talking to Admiral Porter now?” She asks. She is angry and I guess I am too.

    “What did you expect? A pat on the back?” I raise my voice a little under her scrutiny.

    “Well, at least that,” She says and there is a murderous glee in her eyes. She has gone thru hell, and she is still living it. The adrenaline that is in her body is still there.

    “After Warrick?” I ask “You left your post. You left those merchants without any protection just so you could go and get your own vengeance?”

    I see how her hands jerk to the fists. It’s an involuntary movement that she probably does not even notice. I had to say what I just said. This is what Hallie is going to be up against. Not that it is my thoughts about her actions, although they are not far from it. 

    “So where to then?” She asks and avoids my gaze.

    “London at first. You will fly there and Warlock will move herself to a dry dock” I can see that she disagrees. She does not want to leave her ship and her men, not now, not this soon, but there is no other way and she knows it. The line she walks is narrow.

     “Fine.” She finally says and I see her shoulders relax. She sits back down and lets out a laugh. “You know Charles still refuses to speak to me. On top of that, he has already cursed me from there to here for my decision”

    The Warlock had barely made it to that open place next to Henrietta Hopper, taking that survivor’s place like Chimera did all those years ago.

      I stop being admiral and step into being Hallie’s uncle again when I answer darkly, “I know”

     Hallie grins “That bad?”

     I start to pour hot tea for us. She refused my offer of whiskey, saying it was too soon and I know what she meant by it. She wasn’t ready to stop. 

     “I don’t know how you can manage to get them anywhere without the fight or shooting them. Did you know that they threaten to go to mutiny? That they would not be in the next convoy if I would not send someone, hell, something, to look for you?”

     There had been flyby’s from the RAF who were coming back from their missions. A small support and rule-breaking from the pilots to show what they thought about Warlock’s act. It probably had saved me from the second lynch mob visit, but still, no one had seen her. 

     This time Hallie laughs at my disbelief, which sounds heavenly comforting so I continue. “You got it easy if it was only MacIntosh who cursed you. I got a whole six of them in here”

     Hallie’s head perks up when she asks, “Six? Who else” But her voice is still full of laughter.

     “Creedy, Prescott, Capstan, Subcombe and Naggle were with him”

     “Naggle?” Hallie asks, she looks surprised and what I have dug out from Naggle, I too wonder, because he is as bad as Hallie’s crew or maybe it is just because of that. I nod and she lifts her teacup to me like a salute. “You win, you definitely got it harder then” She smiles and I smile back, but then I get serious.

     “Hallie..” I start, but she already shakes her head.

     “I will be careful” 

     I look at her. Even I don’t trust her crew or her exo..that Cole. I’m not happy that she’s without them and she is going to Comfrey’s territory. I don’t like it.

     I nod. She knows how I feel. “And you tell your crew to behave meanwhile?” Whatever she says, I’m still going to order MPs around the clock to guard them. 

    She grins “Always” And for some reason that does not reassure me at all “And I put a good word for you to my merchants” She adds and I laugh at her joke. 

    “And all will be fine?” I say, half asking, and half in me just wants to hear the familiar words from her. 

    She quirks a wink at me. She has changed more and more to be like her crew over the two years that they have been together. “Yes, and all will be fine,” She says.

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***

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    I can’t believe this. Hallie’s plane has sent an SOS and is now missing. Hallie had just left four hours ago. It should have been a safe flight.

     I finally got a much-needed sleep. Just passed out sitting as undressing, with one foot bare, its socks in my hand. My uniform half-open, I had just laid my head back for a second, and that’s how I found myself, mouth open and drooling when my wife Annie came to tell me that lieutenant Brody was on the door with my driver. I had no recollection of getting here or hearing the doorbell.

     Mary knocks on my office door that is already open when I stare at the message in front of me.

     “Sir…?” From the careful way she asks, I know she will bring more bad news, but I don’t feel anything. This time I feel numb. I was so worried after the Warlock’s attack and then the unknowing. And still, Hallie had stood here, just four hours ago, alive. 

     “Yes, Mary?” I say. I hear my own voice, which sounds tired again and I repeat hopefully more vigorously, “Yes, what is it?”

      Mary looks uncomfortable at first and then just bursts out, “Warlock is gone, sir”

      I stare at her like she is speaking gibberish. “What?”

     “Commander Ransome’s ship, sir. I just got the word from the harbour that it is just gone, vanished. They called here to ask about it, after all, it was scheduled to be moved, but I ...” She looks at me “Are we..? Should we do something?” The question is so off that I let out a laugh and I realise that even I don’t know what I should do about it. Alert the MPs? List her as missing?

     Apparently, I have been quiet too long and my grinning upsets Mary when she says “Sir, and there’s more”

     More is an understatement and I’m not grinning when I’m on the phone with the Fleet Admiral. In my hand is a direct order from the admiralty that not under any circumstances Warlock is to be let out from the harbour. There is the explanation about her refitting etc., but it’s bullshit. It smells like Comfrey all over.

     “I think it’s too late, sir” I grind my teeth together. I hate to do this even though it feels like a betrayal for Hallie, but I can’t hide Warlock’s leaving. It is a too big hole to cover.

     “What do you mean it is too late?” I know this call lies in our friendship more than the protocol, but it is better it comes from me than thru the lines or from Comfrey.

     “They are already gone.” The silence on the other end lasts too long for me to feel comfortable, and I say, “I don’t know how they heard about the plane, but they are after her. It’s not an...”

     “Charles, this does not leave me much of a chance. They break the direct order from the fleet. I can’t let this go. You know it.”

     My heart sinks, but I still try “Let me find them, maybe..”

     “No” This sounds bad, and it is “I’m sending ships to find them and they will bring her back. They are the navy’s property, Charles. Not some independent pirate ship that works for king and country however they please’’ I know he is trying to soften the blow, but this could escalate quickly in the wrong direction, and the only key to this is Hallie.

     “What about commander Ransome..?” 

    “Search has already begun, and if they are alive, this won’t look good for Ransome on top of what she has to answer for.” 

     I can’t believe how fast this is taken out of my hands. “Sir, she saved the convoy. She brought back 19 ships.” 

    “I know, but my hands are tied. Comfrey is already accusing Ransome of going after her own vengeance, and now her crew took the Warlock and left against a direct order from the fleet. They are rogues at best, but they can’t do whatever they want. They have to obey the rules.” 

    “Is that what Comfrey is saying?” I can’t but ask. 

    A deep sigh from the other end tells me more than I need to know. “This is alarming and several heads are already rising to support Comfrey. Now they see that there is a pattern and that they will do it again. The convoy is only seen, that Ransome’s act cost too many lives this time.”

     My anger flares. Those accusations are preposterous at best. “That’s a bloody bullshit! I had to send them out there with a spoon and fork against those hungry wolves. And she still did more than any other could have done. No one would have survived if she would not have done what she did.”

    “Charles…”

    “No!” I’m so angry that I raise out of my chair, almost taking the phone with me “I won’t take that. You did not see her. You weren’t here! She was shot to pieces. Barely keeping floating. It took them three days to 10 hour trip that took fucking merchants that long, and she’s a bloody destroyer. No radio, no...” When I took a heated breath that I need to continue, he puts between only words that takes the wind out of my sails.

    “I know” I slump back sitting. “Look, Charles. I know what I said sounded bad, but I’m not sending the firing squad to find Ransome’s ship. I’m sending them to protect her”

     I perk up and cold hands are taking a grip from my gut. “What do you mean by that?” 

    “You are right about Ransome. She has been doing more than what many others could and it has been noticed. There is another theory to what happened to her convoy.”

    My brain moves quickly. This is what Hallie and I were suspecting, “They are targeting her?”

   “Even the lousiest guess would be that, and we had to do something about it. We did not know what, but what happened actually served us more. So we decided to sink her. In the paper anyway, and that’s why she should keep a low profile until she’s refitted”

    “But, how...”

    “Charles, she is our best asset in many ways in this war. We need her desperately, but if she’s hunted down, it will cost more lives and the hope she gives us. Her being out there is becoming more important when we lose hope on so many fronts.”

     I stare at my office wall, and Mary Willard’s words play in my head. “I need to believe that there is hope. I need to believe like Tommy and others, but she needs to be out there...” 

    “Charles, whatever your family is and has done in the past. Is just what we need. Our need is dire”

     What he says, how he says it, makes me let out a laugh that empties my desperation. “That is a lousy blow.”

    “I know, but what can you do about it? My blood runs deep in sea currents too and my beliefs are strong, as are every man in the sea. I know what she is, Charles. Maybe I did not know from the beginning but old John did” He means old rear admiral “And I do too know now. And I will call her name if it comes to that. I have my Family right to do that”

    I have never heard him speak like that. Never, have I heard our true family name spoken out loud so that it would mean something and even being threatened by someone who has the Family right to do that, makes my blood sing. I don’t know what to call it, but later when I thought about the conversation, it was the best description I could give. It was a tickling feeling at first, like ants crawling on your skin and then a cool wind to soothe it away, leaving the pleasant burning sensation humming all over your body. For a second, I was sure I saw Tom standing there and then he was gone.

    “I don’t think we are there yet,” I say to the phone. It feels like it’s not me or even my voice that speaks. I am somewhere else, further. In a small raft. I’m cold but determined not to die or let those who are with me, die. I will stand my ground.

    “You are sure?” 

    “I am sure,” My voice says when I see Hallie turn to look at me.

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