1930

​

     “What do you mean, she is gone?” I almost yell to my wife Annie thru the phone speaker. “Billie says that..”

     “Who is Billie?” For some reason, my brain can’t keep up. The only thing I heard was that Hallie is missing. This must be what becoming old feels like, and it does not help that I have been away a week from home. They are talking that a war would be starting again.

     “Wilhelmina Adams, you know her, who lives in… ” I hear Annie explain patiently, and my brains suddenly click, seeing a petite, blond girl with freckles. No, that was.. how long ago?! She isn’t that anymore, or either Hallie. Hallie is now 17, and Wilhelmina Adams aka Billie, who is Lord Ashendale’s daughter, is 19, and wild as they come. I knew for a moment I saw them together that it would bring me trouble. But I was so pleased that Hallie had finally connected with her own gender and age, and away from the family circle that was not my son’s, or her father’s crew members, or their families.

     “... I’m sure she’s alright.” I hear my wife say cheerfully and I suddenly see red. Annie does not know that a week ago, just before I had to leave for this trip, Hallie and I got into a fight. Well, if you can call that.

     It had already started last year when my oldest son, Stephen, left to join the navy. All the signs had been there before, but I had thought that, in time, it would go away when she grew up. When she would find friends and god knows me even thinking this, a boyfriend.

     I should not have been surprised when she suddenly informed me that she was going to the navy too and what I thought was that she would be like the WRENS we had in wartime. I even got so far as to get her a place in the women’s navy service. Not an easy task, being peacetime, but I did it. And she showed it to my face.

     “No, uncle Charlie. I want to serve on ships, be at sea.”

     “You can. Lots of women were...”

     “You don’t understand!” She slammed the papers that I had given her onto my desk.

     Oh, I did understand, I understood too well “Like your father!” I had raised my voice, anger toward my brother dying and leaving Hallie, had grown over the years, and the fear. The fear that I could not stand against the sea in Hallie’s blood that she was born to. Like all our family had been born to. Even me. 

     Hallie then surprised me, leaning over the desk “Yes, like my father” She said it so calmly, and at that moment I believed her and it scared me more than I had ever thought.

     “And are you going to kill yourself too, like him?! Over my dead body, young lady” I used my Admiral voice that my wife teases me about, that usually gets my underlings to work, but it did not do anything to Hallie.

     “He did not kill himself,” She snarled and I could actually see her eyes sparkle with anger. I had thrown a low blow “I was there, you remember?”

     “You were four years old. You did not understand…”

     “He saved 19 ships and…”

    “And he took almost 150 men with him! And those who survived almost went mad. Four of them did and killed themselves!” I shout at her, and the moment the last words leave from my lips I understand my mistake. Her face goes blank, and she pulls away.

     “I’m not like my father.” She says calmly.

     “Hallie...” I try to appeal to her when she walks out of my study and even closes the door quietly in subtle anger that I would not have in me to do, but was just like his father’s way. After that, I did call Alex, telling him that I’m leaving for a week and what had happened. Maybe he could reason with her.

     “Alex, you should have seen her, she’s more and more like Tom.”

Over the years, Alex has been living in the manor house and taking care of it when I chose to more or less to close it, it not being a suitable for Hallie to grow. You could say that I could not have managed to take care of Hallie without him and the rest of my brother’s crew. They mostly kept an eye on Hallie, when I could not, and eased the loss of her father.

     “I did warn you about it.” I hear Alex’s voice say.

     “I know, I know” I could not have felt more helpless when I hear Alex laugh. He must have felt my desperation, but he says anyway.

     “She would make a fine captain.”

     I grunt in disbelief. “What?! Is this your doing then? I have told you not to fill her head with…”

     “Calm down, Admiral.” I hear Alex say, talking to me like soothing the scared animal, which I almost feel. “She hardly needs our help in that. I’m just saying what is obvious. I will talk to her after she has calmed down.” He promises and hangs up, leaving me to stare at the silenced phone

     “Charlie.. are you there?” I hear Annie’s voice call me with concern. I must have been quiet for some time.

     “I’m here.” I sigh.

     “Are you coming home soon, then?” There is hope in her voice. She is my rock thru the storm, but I have to try to find Hallie first. That means I have to go talk to Alex.

     “Tomorrow,” I promise to her, and she says that she loves me either way, and I tell her the same.

     Our family’s manor house stands at the end of the driveway, not far from London. You could call it a traditional     English manor, but it’s a little bit small for that. Well kept lawns and trees stand around it trying to give it some colour. A three-story high, almost square building was built from grey Cornish stone. With large windows on the first floor, it still looks kind of gloomy even in the pale autumn sun. Or that was what I always thought when I was growing up here. I noticed that the wines that climbed its walls seemed to have grown from the last time I was here.

I had come here after Tom’s “funeral”. If you can say that. There was no body to lay on the ground. We had stood at the open door. Me and Hallie, her tiny hand in mine. The manor had then felt an, even more, darker place than it usually felt. My brother had inherited the manor, he being the older son, and even if it would have been another way, I would have never lived here. Tom, on the other hand, had always loved it. But now, it was Hallie’s. 

     I remember the shiver that had gone thru me when we had stood there and I just could not step in. It was then when I had made the decision.

     “You can’t live here.” I blurted, not even thinking how hard that could have sounded to Hallie. Like I would be taking her father away from her a second time. 

     I felt the reassuring squeeze that had kept me going thru the funeral. “It’s alright. Alex will live here while I live with you. I just have to get my clothes and find shoes for Tommy.” 

     “Tommy?” I say, not even wondering when Alex’s living arrangement had been made.

     “His dad said he will bring new ones next time when he comes back. But he isn’t now,” She says silently. “Like my dad.”

     Later I ask about Tommy from Alex, and he tells me that Tommy is one of the Arios’s engineering chief’s sons. The chief did not make it.

      On the third knock, I give in. If I have learned anything about Alex thru years, he won’t much hang inside. 

Turning behind the corner, I step into a garden that was our mother’s pride and joy. Here, in this gloomy house’s first floor, opens to a patio with large, high double doors that I know, leads to the library that takes most of the space on this side of the house’s floor plan. Taking a searching look, I finally find Alex coming between large willows that have stood here for centuries.

     Years on land have not taken the sea out of Alex. Every time I see him, he seems to be growing more and more to look like an old literature sea dog, all that he needs is a pipe. I raise my hand to greet him and he raises his.

     As he finally comes closer, his greeting is very Alex like, short bark that makes me feel like he has no much respect for me. “Admiral,” He nods “What brings you here?”

     I tell him. “Annie says that she never went to that Adam’s girl. That was six days ago.”

     Alex starts to take off his greasy gloves as his hand goes to his hat and thru sweaty hairs under it. I notice lots of greys in there. We are getting older.

     “Well, she never came here, but you know very well where she’s gone, it was only a matter of time,” He says, slapping the hat back on “I never thought you to be short-sided” The glare that he gives me is like that accusation on the pier 13 years ago.

     “It’s not…” I start to say.

     “Not possible?” Alex lets out a dry laugh.

     I glare at him. He deserves that. I don’t even going to say anything about Hallie being a woman. I don’t have anything against the women in arms. In the last war, they were more useful than some men, but I can’t change the world order so that Hallie can go to the navy. Like her father, I finally admit, but just to myself.

     “You are Admiral still” Alex peers at me questioning “And your name should still weigh something?”

     I glare at him again. So, he knows. Another secret of my family. That makes me straighten my back and Alex seems to be like a cat with the cream and he does even bristle his hackles when I say.

     “If I would be you, I would tread carefully now”

     That makes him nod severely “I will, but Admiral forgets that I’m Family now. We all are.” I hate when he’s right.

A sudden movement from Alex when he slaps the gloves he has been holding to his thigh makes me nod, acknowledging his words.

     “Have you thought about what you are going to do to her if you find her?” Alex asks and points toward the manor and we start walking.

     I shook my head. “Don’t you mean when?” And Alex’s laughter makes me smile too, so I ask his opinion on a matter at hand. “What should I do then?”

     “You could let her be,” Alex says. “If she can make it, then she’s earned it.”

     “It’s not what I am worried about!” I snap. I don’t have any delusions about Hallie’s capabilities. “What if…it will happen? What if there is a crew for her and they…?” I make a frustrated gesture with my hand. “You yourself said that she’s stronger than Tom. This should not have been even an option, and it has been talked about the war starting again...” I feel how Alex grabs my arm and I stop. I don’t dare to look at him, so I look at my boots. What happened 13 years ago, what Alex told me, haunts me still.

     “Then find her and bring her back before it happens. I make the calls on my end.” Alex’s voice was with determination. He can get places where my Admiral rank can’t.

     “And what do we do when we find her?” I looked at him and saw lines around his mouth. He has not forgotten what my brother dying did to him or is still doing to him.

     Alex shifts his shoulders and lets go of my arm. “Then we lock her up somewhere until she's an old hag.”

The notation makes me laugh. Like if it would be possible.