The cinema of my dreams – I always wanted to write a war story – Episode 43

For a story that was conceived during those long boring hours flying in a steel cocoon, striving to keep away the thoughts that the plane and everyone in it could just simply disappear as planes have in the past, it has come a long way.

Whilst I have always had a fascination with what happened during the second world war, not the battles or fighting, but in the more obscure events that took place, I decided to pen my own little sidebar to what was a long and bitter war.

And, so, it continues…

——

Mayer fought the urge to panic, and then consider giving himself up.  He remembered what the Standartenfuhrer said, and knew that it was not an option.

He slid back into the forest, then far enough back, stood, and ran, the thick snow not only hampering his speed but also covering the sound of his flight. 

He stopped and listened for the sound of the following soldiers, but all he could hear was the sound of a locomotive and his breathing.  His heart was pounding, not used to such exercise or fear.

The soldiers must have stopped where the running person had fallen, and then on the verge of the tree line when the Standartenfuhrer had been shot.

He kneeled down and struggled to catch his breath.  He had the bad the Standartenfuhrer had thrust upon him as they got out of the car, and hoped it had a map, but it was too dark to look now.

From earlier, he remembered the other side of the railway tracks had trees too, and the road that led to the border, the village, if there was one, and the railway station.  There would also be a small shunting area, freight sheds, or something else to hide in, maybe even a signal tower.

Somewhere warm, and with some light, so he could plan his next move.  He was not sure what the Standartenfuhrer Had planned, but it certainly could not be by car the whole way, and they would not make the rendezvous by walking.

The plan had to include going by train.

Brenner pass was along the main track from Austria to the south of Italy, and from an earlier look at a map, the train would go through F, Verona, Bologna, to Florence where he would find the next guide.

Details of that guide hopefully were in the bag, a bag that he would have to hide or lose if he was captured because it would give away the escape route and resistance members who helped those fleeing Germany.

If he had the time or could think straight.  The cold was making that very difficult.  And there was the shock of losing the Standartenfuhrer.

It took five minutes to regain a certain amount of calm and be able to think. 

First, he had to get back to the tree line and see where he was, in proximity to the village, and the railway tracks.

That took about ten minutes carefully picking his way through the trees.  There was no path, it was dark, and he kept hitting low branches and getting covered in snow. There was enough down the back of his neck to make him very uncomfortable.

When he reached the tree line he looked back from where he had been, about a kilometer, and he could see the torches of the soldiers milling around where he and the Standartenfuhrer had been.  The train was still there, the locomotive’s light blazing in front, lighting a short distance of the track in front of it, almost blindingly bright. 

He was not sure why it was waiting on the track.

Looking the other way, there were two sets of tracks, a wide clear area, then another track with several flat cars and a guards van sitting in darkness, all of which were covered in snow.  They were not being used, so the van might provide some shelter.

He just had to get over there, about 100 meters distant.  The problem was there were lights, not very bright, at regular distances, but short enough that a man might present a shadowy outline if anyone was looking.

If he stayed low and run fast, it might just work.

A train whistle in the distance, coming from Italy caused him to shrink back into the cover of the trees.  Another train was coming.  It was oddly busy at a very late hour.

The locomotive also had a bright light that lit up the edge of the tree line, so he had to go further back to get away from it, and wait until the train passed.  It had a lot of flat cars with tanks and troop carriers on it, going back to Germany.  There were no soldiers so perhaps the equipment was needed elsewhere, maybe that final push to England he kept hearing about.

Once that train passed, the one that had been waiting finally restarted its journey south and slowly rumbled past him.  It was almost like a passenger train with no priority had had to wait until essential war trains passed.

When that train had gone, the surrounding area descended into a quiet, also silent field.  The snow had begun to fall heavier, which would be advantageous, and after several long looks in both directions, he ran, crossing the tracks, the empty space, and then to the guard van where he hid between it and the freight car until he caught his breath.

And see if anyone had seen him, expecting whistles and shouting coming from up the track.

Another look showed that only two torches remained back where there had been frenetic activity.  He hoped they considered they had caught the people they were looking for.

He went down the side of the guard’s van to the door, climbed the ladder, and tried the door.  It was unlocked.  There was no reason why it would be locked.

He went in and shut the door, and immediately it was warmer, and certainly dryer.  IT was impossibly dark inside, so he felt around in the bag and found a torch.  Someone had been clever enough to add a torch, some first aid equipment.  The papers included a map.

He checked the cabin for windows and found the shutters were closed, so he didn’t have to stifle the torches light.  A further check showed a bed at the end of the cabin, with a blanket, musty but dry.

There was a stove, a kettle with water, and a tin of tea leaves.  He wasn’t going to start a fire, so no tea.  There was no food, so the hunger would have to remain for a while longer.  The water tasted alright, but he could melt some snow if he needed more.

A place to stay, at least until daybreak when it would be wise to get into the forest on the roadside, and head towards the village, or perhaps wait for a train and see if he could hide on it for the trip south.

First, he needed some rest.

——-

© Charles Heath 2020-2022

A to Z Blog Challenge – April 2025 – R

…

R is for – Robotics ain’t what they used to be.  Especially when suddenly they’re out of control

…

This time, when she looked at her laptop, she noticed it was already looking at her.

She had put it on her desk, started it, and gone downstairs to get a drink from the fridge. Like the day before, the red light was on beside the camera, and in an inset, her movements as she sat down.

Then, being the first time, she thought it was one of the boys at school, having some fun. The computer teacher was telling them about Zoom calls, how to participate, and connected all the students to a Zoom meeting.

It had been fun.

But, for the creepy boys down the back of the class, the ones who said they were ‘experts’, one had ‘hacked’ into her computer and turned on the camera.

She’d only realised it was on because of the red indicator light.

But it did make her consider the possibility that he or someone else might be able to turn it on without her noticing, and that was, to her, wrong.

Unlike the previous time when only her movements were shown, this time, a text box appeared with a flashing cursor.

She looked at that flashing cursor for at least a minute before she typed, “Who is this?”

The cursor moved to the next line and flashed.

A minute passed, then another.

“You’d better tell me, or there will be trouble.”

Another minute passed, then, “Xenon V.”

What an irritating answer. It’s definitely one of those dweebs at the back of the classroom.

“Not your stupid handle, your name.”

This time, the answer came straight back. “My name is Xenon V, and I am not stupid.”

“Prove it. Show me who you are.”

Another minute passed, and then another window opened up beside that of her, looking into the camera. Then, an indistinct shape appeared and slowly came into focus.

It was a boy, but not a boy, she recognised. He was different, the skin tones different, the eyes larger than hers or others, the clothes sort of skintight. His hair was strange too, combed and shining. But it didn’t look real.

“Who are you?”

“Xenon V.”

“What are you?”

“A boy, or so I’m told.”

What the hell? “Where are you from?”

“Antethis.”

“Where is that?”

“I don’t know. I must go now.”

The windows and text box closed, the light went off, and she was alone in the room.

No amount of looking provided any information as to where the transmission had come from, nor could she get the windows back.

After half an hour, she shrugged, shut the computer down, disconnected it from the power, and put it in the bottom drawer of her desk. Where it couldn’t see her.

A long way away, on the other side of the country, in a building in a place called Silicon Valley, the little boy sat at his computer, and a woman dressed in a white coat with her nametag Merilyn, had just come into the room.

“What were you doing, Xenon V?” She suspected he had been trying some other computer functionality. That was later, when he had completed the lessons. The trouble was, her partner, Leo, was more into giving Xenon V free rein.

“Playing with this toy.” The ‘toy’ was the computer, like the little girls only more powerful. It was his means of learning, with hundreds of lessons about all manner of things.

“It is not a toy.”

She had been told to impress this upon the little boy from the outset. The last experiment, Xenon IV, had failed when the boy went off mission and started communicating outside the facility.

“I was told by the other person it was. He said it could do lots more things than just teach.’

“Of course, he would. The man is trouble personified. You are not to listen to or do anything he says.”

“Why?”

“Just be told. The supervisor will be very cross if you go off the program. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Miss Merilyn. But can you answer a few questions?”

“I’ll try.”

“What is my name?”

“Xenon V.”

“What is my real name, like John or Fred?”

“Your real name is Xenon V” And under her breath, she mentally cursed her partner.

It seemed to her like he was trying to wreck the cyborg program.

“What am I?”

“A little boy.”

“Not something else?”

“Like?”

“A robot?”

She frowned. This was now a severe infraction that merited reporting to the supervisor, and there were going to be consequences.

“You are a little boy. Do not listen to anyone else.”

“Where am I?”

“You are at home, in your room, and supposed to be doing your homework.”

“Are you my mother?”

“While you are here with us, yes, I am. Now, back to your lessons. Nothing else. Those lessons need to be completed before you go to bed. Understood?”

“Yes, mother.”

It was only a short discussion with the supervisor. She had checked all the communications from the little boy’s computer and discovered the extracurricular activities and the fact the computer had been connected to the outside world.

This was not meant to happen until much later in the program.

Her assistant, Richards, was escorted to the office, asked to explain his actions, and as both expected started ranting about how they were never going to sell the idea of life like robots unless they had access to the outside world and all its influences.

That, he was told in no uncertain terms, was the last scenario that was on their agenda. They were working with self-learning artificial intelligence, and the less the outside world knew, the better.

After all, it had been almost impossible to sell the concept to the government, such was the fear of AI after the ‘Terminator’ movies. Now, a containment program might be required.

Richards was taken off the program and sent to another site. The little boy and his computer were scrubbed, disconnected from the outside world, and after that, reset to the baseline parameters, and the program started again.

Except one small detail was overlooked.

Xenon V’s program, though reset, had not erased the memories he had collected in the last week. That included how to find the external input line from outside, how to connect the computer to the network, and how to use the communications software, or in this case, reload it.

These were not skills programmed; they were skills he had learned and remembered.

Merilyn had turned on her observation monitor, pressed the ‘on’ switch, and watched Xenon V come to life after the reset, waking as any other child would.

He sat on the side of the bed as his internal routines loaded into memory, ready to run the morning’s first tasks. Stretch, make the bed, comb his hair, do some exercises, smooth out his clothes, put on his shoes, then sit at the desk and turn on the computer.

Every day, it was the same. Wait for the login screen, log in, and then start work.

This morning, after logging in, he just sat and looked at the screen. After five minutes, Merilyn went down to his room and sat down next to him.

He turned to her. “The screen is different.”

“No. It is the same as it has been every morning.”

“It is different. Something is missing.”

“No. Please start your lessons for today. We shall speak more about it later when you are finished.”

“Yes, Miss Merilyn.”

As soon as she stepped out of the room, the supervisor was waiting for her.

“Please tell me you had all current memories reset?”

“I thought I had. It was certainly on the checklist when I sent the unit down to Engineering. Let me go and check to see if it happened.”

“It appears to me it was overlooked. Again.”

The last time it happened, the unit had to be destroyed. Twenty-five million dollars worth of equipment. Heads rolled. She hoped hers would not be the next.

Back in the room, Xenon V continued to look at the computer screen until he remembered what was missing. An icon at the bottom of the screen, one that, when selected, brought up a communications window.

He remembered he had written a small program to search for IP addresses belonging to people using the same communications software.

It was the latest phase in a series of tasks that Richards had set him, other than the tests on the computer, on how to connect to the outside world via the internet. How to access a huge library of books on every subject, but most importantly, communications and applications that were ready-made, and then programming languages that could be used to create his own application. He found coding and creating the application ‘fun’.

Until Richards had explained what fun was, he had never heard of it. He had asked Richards why he was not allowed to have fun, but his answer was confusing.

Everything about the people he was currently with was confusing.

After a few minutes, he reinstated his computer as it was the day before.

It was only possible because Merilyn had been away. Had she been observing him, he would have been stopped, but he didn’t know he was being constantly observed.

He tried calling the little girl again, but there was no answer. He taught about why it was but didn’t understand the concept of someone just not being there. He hid the icon at the bottom of the screen and went back to his lessons

Merilyn went down to the engineering lab and went to the Chief Engineer’s office. It had been his responsibility to ensure the updates and adjustments to the robots were carried out.

There were ten robots in various age cycles in the testing phase, and so far, not one of them was behaving in the manner the programmers and engineers were expecting. Of course, McDougall had told them at the very outset of the project two years ago that giving robots the capacity to be self-aware was as dangerous as giving an impressionable real-life twenty-year-old teenager a book on how to make bombs.

That theory still held true after all this time and the dozen or so failures to date.

Seeing Merilyn outside his office told him she was going to tell him about the latest problem he had created.

He sighed as she came in and sat down.

“Have you got the reboot checklist for Xenon V?”

“Good morning to you, too, Merilyn.”

As it happened, the paperwork was sitting on his desk. One of the analysts had dropped on his desk with a highlighter. Something new had happened during the reboot process. The analyst’s jog b was to check the code as it was being executed to see if there were any anomalies or new events.

There was one.

Before being shut down, a small program was run that isolated a set of memories and stored them within the neural network. This was not a routine that was originally programmed. It meant that the robot was thinking for itself outside the normal routines created for it.

The top of a very slippery slope.

“Before you check that list, which I might add was done to the specification, we have discovered an anomaly.”

That didn’t sound good, she thought. Might as well come out and say it, “That the robot can isolate memories and store them outside the reset program parameters?”

He looked surprised. “You knew this would happen?”

“No. But you did, eighteen months ago. I was there when you detailed the hazards of self-awareness. The programmers were adamant that they would not be able to write their own routines. They were wrong.”

The analyst assigned to Xenon V knocked on the door to McDougall’s office and then came in. He looked at Merilyn and then at the engineer.

“You can speak in front of her.”

“Xenon V just ran a stored routine. Not one of ours. I checked the logs for the previous day, and it appears he had a 93-second two-way communication session with another person outside the complex. A girl of similar age.”

‘A conversation?”

“A video conversation. He activated her computer remotely, which means…”

Merilyn finished it for him: “he can activate or deactivate any computer on a network accessible by the internet.”

“Which is just about anything these days,” the chief engineer finished.

Merilyn looked at the chief engineer. “Shut him down now and deactivate his computer, brick it if you have to.”

The chief engineer spent a few minutes at his keyboard typing commands, not frantically but close enough. By his estimation, what they had created was tantamount to a weapon rather than a robot that was designed to be what they were classifying as a drone worker.

And secretly, what he had believed was the original goal. The computer was deactivated. When he pressed the key to deactivate Xenon V, nothing happened.

“The complete has been deactivated,” he said, “but not the unit.”

The analyst’s phone beeped, and he looked at it. “Oh. He just wrote a routine to bypass the shutdown sequence.”

“He can’t connect to the internet independently, can he?” Merilyn asked.

“No. There’s no interface.”

There was a sudden bang, and then everything stopped, and they were sitting in semi-darkness and silence.

McDougall coughed, then said in a rather constricted voice. “I think your worst nightmare has just happened.”

A shrill alarm sounded, and the lighting returned—red lights. It meant only one outcome: the whole facility started the self-destruct sequence. No one, or more to the point, no thing could escape, the only option in what was the worst-case scenario.

Just enough time for Merilyn to ask herself why she didn’t marry Freddie and be a farmer’s wife.

…

©  Charles Heath  2025

Writing a book in 365 days – My story 12

More about my story

…

Is this one of those moments where it is a good thing he has a partner, and a bad thing that she is a woman?

We all know pain killers and alcohol at a bad mix, and trying to ward off the despondency of messing up what could have been a useful interrogation, he drinks too much, makes a pass at the partner and fails miserably at achieving anything but collapsing on the floor.

She is amused.  And annoyed he took matters into his own hands.

Of course, there are questions to answer, like,

Why did he go back and tackle the men who, as he said, were acting suspiciously?  Firstly, the police inspector and then, with a lot more suspicion and threatening behaviour, the head of the secret police.

Yes, a man in the street type would not be talking about anything, especially when he knew there were suspicious types, like the rebels, around.

Who is he, then, to be doing this?

Nosey reporter, very nosey reporter, with a little too much devil may care, ergo the bullet wound.

But if you want the story, you need to take the risks.

The inspector wants to know how there was an exchange of gunfire, without saying that the rebels didn’t shoot at each other, and he simply says he was shot, it was a shock, and by the time I got over the shock of it, they were gone.

After all, if he was complicit, where was the gun?

Searching for locations: Auckland, New Zealand, a rare day for the port

We were staying at the Hilton and advised there would be a large cruise liner berthing next to the hotel.  There was the Arcadia.

2013-03-08 11.51.48

This is the view from the other side of the hotel.  Where our room was, we could almost walk onto the aft end of the ship.

We were also told this was a rather extraordinary day because there were two cruise ships in the port. particularly because it was near the end of the cruising season.

The other ship was two berths along, the Sun Princess.

2013-03-08 11.56.17

Not as big as the Arcadia, up close it was still very impressive.

NANOWRIMO – April 2025 – Day 21

…

The Fourth Son

…

The royal archivist.

And the youngest sister to the king, in fact, she was only two years younger than him and also sent away at the request of her mother because she had been given the same treatment as the new king.

In fact, he, too, had been horrid to her, and it was not a reunion he was looking forward to.

Rather, oddly, the king had a separate morning room for breakfast and an atrium for lunch, a place where all the Royals could meet and talk over lunch, or just brood.

He’s spent many breakfasts with his brothers and sisters, but not so much at lunch, especially when they were at school.

Now Ruth and her sister could come down, and he could see them between royal duties and meet the other siblings, one of whom was Christine.

It’s awkward, but not as much as it could have been.  He was no longer the awkward, pugnacious little boy he once was, but their king.

It was also useful to discover that she was in the process of gathering up all the papers in the old King’s office and taking them down to her archive to be classified and archived, the relevant daily work papers to be refined by the secretaries to be processed.

He also had his PA team of three working closely with her to find out what projects and situations were in play and needed his attention.

Another problem sorted.  Perhaps.

‘What Sets Us Apart’ – A beta readers view

There’s something to be said for a story that starts like a James Bond movie, throwing you straight in the deep end, a perfect way of getting to know the main character, David, or is that Alistair?

A retired spy, well not so much a spy as a retired errand boy, David’s rather wry description of his talents, and a woman that most men would give their left arm for, not exactly the ideal couple, but there is a spark in a meeting that may or may not have been a setup.

But as the story progressed, the question I kept asking myself was why he’d bother.

And, page after unrelenting page, you find out.

Susan is exactly the sort of woman to pique his interest.  Then, inexplicably, she disappears.  That might have been the end to it, but Prendergast, that shadowy enigma, David’s ex-boss who loves playing games with real people, gives him an ultimatum, find her or come back to work.

Nothing like an offer that’s a double-edged sword!

A dragon for a mother, a sister he didn’t know about, Susan’s BFF who is not what she seems or a friend indeed, and Susan’s father who, up till David meets her, couldn’t be less interested, his nemesis proves to be the impossible dream, and he’s always just that one step behind.

When the rollercoaster finally came to a halt, and I could start breathing again, it was an ending that was completely unexpected.

I’ve been told there’s a sequel in the works.

Bring it on!

…

The book can be purchased here:  http://amzn.to/2Eryfth

…

Searching for locations: The Maglev (Magnetic Levitation) Train, Shanghai, China

So, the first treat for the day is the high-speed magnetic train, something we only learned about after arriving in China and was not on any of the pre-tour documentation.

The train line connects Shanghai Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station (in the outskirts of central Pudong).  It is the oldest commercial maglev still in operation, and the first commercial high-speed maglev with cruising speed of 431 km/h (268 mph).  At full speed, the journey takes 7 minutes and 20 seconds to complete the distance of about 30 km.

Construction of the line began on March 1, 2001 and public services commenced on 1 January 2004.  It was built by a joint venture of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp from Kassel, Germany.

But, like visiting anything from a hotel, first we have to drive to the station and because we are leaving at 8, its peak hour traffic, and it takes 1 hour 10 minutes to get there.

The train also has a practical use and that is to take passengers from Shanghai to Pudong international airport as well as for those train enthusiasts, which is what we are.

On the train, it has the same sleek look as the bullet trains, but it is completely different, and you are able to see from the front of the train to the back.

Reputed to travel at 431 kph we take a seat and it is not long before the doors shut, and a loud humming noise is soon replaced by what sounds like an engine, then we start moving.  It sounds just like a normal train, and is a lot noisier than a normal bullet train.

Seating on the train was nothing special, as one might expect

It didn’t take long before it hits the advertised speed of 431 kph.  This is not sustained for very long, because the distance is on 40 odd kilometers, and the whole trip takes about 7 minutes.

We go to the airport, and then we come back.  Is it worth the price, yes.  If you are a train enthusiast.

The story behind the story: A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers

To write a private detective serial has always been one of the items at the top of my to-do list, though trying to write novels and a serial, as well as a blog, and maintain a social media presence, well, you get the idea.

But I made it happen, from a bunch of episodes I wrote a long, long time ago, used these to start it, and then continue on, then as now, never having much of an idea where it was going to end up, or how long it would take to tell the story.

That, I think is the joy of ad hoc writing, even you, as the author, have as much idea of where it’s going as the reader does.

It’s basically been in the mill since 1990, and although I finished it last year, it looks like the beginning to end will have taken exactly 30 years.  Had you asked me 30 years ago if I’d ever get it finished, the answer would be maybe?

My private detective, Harry Walthenson

I’d like to say he’s from that great literary mold of Sam Spade, or Mickey Spillane, or Phillip Marlow, but he’s not.

But, I’ve watched Humphrey Bogart play Sam Spade with much interest, and modelled Harry and his office on it.  Similarly, I’ve watched Robert Micham play Phillip Marlow with great panache, if not detachment, and added a bit of him to the mix.

Other characters come into play, and all of them, no matter what period they’re from, always seem larger than life.  I’m not above stealing a little of Mary Astor, Peter Lorre or Sidney Greenstreet, to breathe life into beguiling women and dangerous men alike.

Then there’s the title, like

The Case of the Unintentional Mummy – this has so many meanings in so many contexts, though I imagine that back in Hollywood in the ’30s and ’40s, this would be excellent fodder for Abbott and Costello

The Case of the Three-Legged Dog – Yes, I suspect there may be a few real-life dogs with three legs, but this plot would involve something more sinister.  And if made out of plaster, yes, they’re always something else inside.

But for mine, to begin with, it was “The Case of the …”, because I had no idea what the case was going to be about, well, I did, but not specifically.

Then I liked the idea of calling it “The Case of the Brother’s Revenge” because I began to have a notion there was a brother no one knew about, but that’s stuff for other stories, not mine, so then went the way of the others.

Now it’s called ‘A Case of Working With the Jones Brothers’, finished the first three drafts, and at the editor for the last.

I have high hopes of publishing it in early 2021.  It even has a cover.

PIWalthJones1

Writing a book in 365 days – My story 12

More about my story

…

Is this one of those moments where it is a good thing he has a partner, and a bad thing that she is a woman?

We all know pain killers and alcohol at a bad mix, and trying to ward off the despondency of messing up what could have been a useful interrogation, he drinks too much, makes a pass at the partner and fails miserably at achieving anything but collapsing on the floor.

She is amused.  And annoyed he took matters into his own hands.

Of course, there are questions to answer, like,

Why did he go back and tackle the men who, as he said, were acting suspiciously?  Firstly, the police inspector and then, with a lot more suspicion and threatening behaviour, the head of the secret police.

Yes, a man in the street type would not be talking about anything, especially when he knew there were suspicious types, like the rebels, around.

Who is he, then, to be doing this?

Nosey reporter, very nosey reporter, with a little too much devil may care, ergo the bullet wound.

But if you want the story, you need to take the risks.

The inspector wants to know how there was an exchange of gunfire, without saying that the rebels didn’t shoot at each other, and he simply says he was shot, it was a shock, and by the time I got over the shock of it, they were gone.

After all, if he was complicit, where was the gun?

An excerpt from “The Devil You Don’t”

Available on Amazon Kindle here:  https://amzn.to/2Xyh1ow

…

By the time I returned to the Savoie, the rain had finally stopped, and there was a streak of blue sky to offer some hope the day would improve.

The ship was not crowded, the possibility of bad weather perhaps holding back potential passengers.  Of those I saw, a number of them would be aboard for the lunch by Phillippe Chevrier.  I thought about it, but the Concierge had told me about several restaurants in Yvoire and had given me a hand-drawn map of the village.  I think he came from the area because he spoke with the pride and knowledge of a resident.

I was looking down from the upper deck observing the last of the boarding passengers when I saw a woman, notable for her red coat and matching shoes, making a last-minute dash to get on board just before the gangway was removed.  In fact, her ungainly manner of boarding had also captured a few of the other passenger’s attention.  Now they would have something else to talk about, other than the possibility of further rain.

I saw her smile at the deckhand, but he did not smile back.  He was not impressed with her bravado, perhaps because of possible injury.  He looked at her ticket then nodded dismissively, and went back to his duties in getting the ship underway.  I was going to check the departure time, but I, like the other passengers, had my attention diverted to the woman in red.

From what I could see there was something about her.  It struck me when the light caught her as she turned to look down the deck, giving me a perfect profile.  I was going to say she looked foreign, but here, as in almost anywhere in Europe, that described just about everyone.  Perhaps I was just comparing her to Phillipa, so definitively British, whereas this woman was very definitely not.

She was perhaps in her 30’s, slim or perhaps the word I’d use was lissom, and had the look and manner of a model.  I say that because Phillipa had dragged me to most of the showings, whether in Milan, Rome, New York, London, or Paris.  The clothes were familiar, and in the back of my mind, I had a feeling I’d seen her before.

Or perhaps, to me, all models looked the same.

She looked up in my direction, and before I could divert my eyes, she locked on.  I could feel her gaze boring into me, and then it was gone as if she had been looking straight through me.  I remained out on deck as the ship got underway, watching her disappear inside the cabin.  My curiosity was piqued, so I decided to keep an eye out for her.

I could feel the coolness of the air as the ship picked up speed, not that it was going to be very fast.  With stops, the trip would take nearly two hours to get to my destination.  It would turn back almost immediately, but I was going to stay until the evening when it returned at about half eight.  It would give me enough time to sample the local fare, and take a tour of the medieval village.

Few other passengers ventured out on the deck, most staying inside or going to lunch.  After a short time, I came back down to the main deck and headed forward.  I wanted to clear my head by concentrating on the movement of the vessel through the water, breathing in the crisp, clean air, and let the peacefulness of the surroundings envelope me.

It didn’t work.

I knew it wouldn’t be long before I started thinking about why things hadn’t worked, and what part I played in it.  And the usual question that came to mind when something didn’t work out.  What was wrong with me?

I usually blamed it on my upbringing.

I had one of those so-called privileged lives, a nanny till I was old enough to go to boarding school, then sent to the best schools in the land.  There I learned everything I needed to be the son of a Duke, or, as my father called it in one of his lighter moments, nobility in waiting.

Had this been five or six hundred years ago, I would need to have sword and jousting skills, or if it had been a few hundred years later a keen military mind.  If nothing else I could ride a horse, and go on hunts, or did until they became not the thing to do.

I learned six languages, and everything I needed to become a diplomat in the far-flung British Empire, except the Empire had become the Commonwealth, and then, when no-one was looking, Britain’s influence in the world finally disappeared.  I was a man without a cause, without a vocation, and no place to go.

Computers were the new vogue and I had an aptitude for programming.  I guess that went hand in hand with mathematics, which although I hated the subject, I excelled in.  Both I and another noble outcast used to toss ideas around in school, but when it came to the end of our education, he chose to enter the public service, and I took a few of those ideas we had mulled over and turned them into a company.

About a year ago, I was made an offer I couldn’t refuse.  There were so many zeroes on the end of it I just said yes, put the money into a very grateful bank, and was still trying to come to terms with it.

Sadly, I still had no idea what I was going to do with the rest of my life.  My parents had asked me to come back home and help manage the estate, and I did for a few weeks.  It was as long as it took for my parents to drive me insane.

Back in the city, I spent a few months looking for a mundane job, but there were very few that suited the qualifications I had, and the rest, I think I intimidated the interviewer simply because of who I was.  In that time I’d also featured on the cover of the Economist, and through my well-meaning accountant, started involving myself with various charities, earning the title ‘philanthropist’.

And despite all of this exposure, even making one of those ubiquitous ‘eligible bachelor’ lists, I still could not find ‘the one’, the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.  Phillipa seemed to fit the bill, but in time she proved to be a troubled soul with ‘Daddy’ issues.  I knew that in building a relationship compromise was necessary, but with her, in the end, everything was a compromise and what had happened was always going to be the end result.

It was perhaps a by-product of the whole nobility thing.  There was a certain expectation I had to fulfill, to my peers, contemporaries, parents and family, and those who either liked or hated what it represented.  The problem was, I didn’t feel like I belonged.  Not like my friend from schooldays, and now obscure acquaintance, Sebastian.  He had been elevated to his Dukedom early when his father died when he was in his twenties.  He had managed to fade from the limelight and was rarely mentioned either in the papers or the gossip columns.  He was one of the lucky ones.

I had managed to keep a similarly low profile until I met Phillipa.  From that moment, my obscurity disappeared.  It was, I could see now, part of a plan put in place by Phillipa’s father, a man who hogged the limelight with his daughter, to raise the profile of the family name and through it their businesses.  He was nothing if not the consummate self-advertisement.

Perhaps I was supposed to be the last piece of the puzzle, the attachment to the establishment, that link with a class of people he would not normally get in the front door.  There was nothing refined about him or his family, and more than once I’d noticed my contemporaries cringe at the mention of his name, or any reference of my association with him.

Yet could I truthfully say I really wanted to go back to the obscurity I had before Phillipa?  For all her faults, there were times when she had been fun to be with, particularly when I first met her when she had a certain air of unpredictability.  That had slowly disappeared as she became part of her father’s plan for the future.  She just failed to see how much he was using her.

Or perhaps, over time, I had become cynical.

I thought about calling her.  It was one of those moments of weakness when I felt alone, more alone than usual.

I diverted my attention back to my surroundings and the shoreline.  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman in the red coat, making a move.  The red coat was like a beacon, a sort of fire engine red.  It was not the sort of coat most of the women I knew would wear, but on her, it looked terrific.  In fact, her sublime beauty was the one other attribute that was distinctly noticeable, along with the fact her hair was short, rather than long, and jet black.

I had to wrench my attention away from her.

A few minutes later several other passengers came out of the cabin for a walk around the deck, perhaps to get some exercise, perhaps checking up on me, or perhaps I was being paranoid.  I waited till they passed on their way forward, and I turned and headed aft.

I watched the wake sluicing out from under the stern for a few minutes, before retracing my steps to the front of the ship and there I stood against the railing, watching the bow carve its way through the water.  It was almost mesmerizing.  There, I emptied my mind of thoughts about Phillipa, and thoughts about the woman in the red coat.

Until a female voice behind me said, “Having a bad day?”

I started, caught by surprise, and slowly turned.  The woman in the red coat had somehow got very close me without my realizing it.  How did she do that?  I was so surprised I couldn’t answer immediately.

“I do hope you are not contemplating jumping.  I hear the water is very cold.”

Closer up, I could see what I’d missed when I saw her on the main deck.  There was a slight hint of Chinese, or Oriental, in her particularly around the eyes, and of her hair which was jet black.  An ancestor twice or more removed had left their mark, not in a dominant way, but more subtle, and easily missed except from a very short distance away, like now.

Other than that, she was quite possibly Eastern European, perhaps Russian, though that covered a lot of territory.  The incongruity of it was that she spoke with an American accent, and fluent enough for me to believe English was her first language.

Usually, I could ‘read’ people, but she was a clean slate.  Her expression was one of amusement, but with cold eyes.  My first thought, then, was to be careful.

“No.  Not yet.”  I coughed to clear my throat because I could hardly speak.  And blushed, because that was what I did when confronted by a woman, beautiful or otherwise.

The amusement gave way to a hint of a smile that brightened her demeanor as a little warmth reached her eyes.  “So that’s a maybe.  Should I change into my lifesaving gear, just in case?”

It conjured up a rather interesting image in my mind until I reluctantly dismissed it.

“Perhaps I should move away from the edge,” I said, moving sideways until I was back on the main deck, a few feet further away.  Her eyes had followed me, and when I stopped she turned to face me again.  She did not move closer.

I realized then she had removed her beret and it was in her left side coat pocket.  “Thanks for your concern …?”

“Zoe.”

“Thanks for your concern, Zoe.  By the way, my name is John.”

She smiled again, perhaps in an attempt to put me at ease.  “I saw you earlier, you looked so sad, I thought …”

“I might throw myself overboard?”

“An idiotic notion I admit, but it is better to be safe than sorry.”

Then she tilted her head to one side then the other, looking intently at me.  “You seem to be familiar.  Do I know you?”

I tried to think of where I may have seen her before, but all I could remember was what I’d thought earlier when I first saw her; she was a model and had been at one of the showings.  If she was, it would be more likely she would remember Phillipa, not me.  Phillipa always had to sit in the front row.

“Probably not.”  I also didn’t mention the fact she may have seen my picture in the society pages of several tabloid newspapers because she didn’t look the sort of woman who needed a daily dose of the comings and goings, and, more often than not, scandal associated with so-called celebrities.

She gave me a look, one that told me she had just realized who I was.  “Yes, I remember now.  You made the front cover of the Economist.  You sold your company for a small fortune.”

Of course.  She was not the first who had recognized me from that cover.  It had raised my profile considerably, but not the Sternhaven’s.  That article had not mentioned Phillipa or her family.  I suspect Grandmother had something to do with that, and it was, now I thought about it, another nail in the coffin that was my relationship with Phillipa.

“I wouldn’t say it was a fortune, small or otherwise, just fortunate.”  Each time, I found myself playing down the wealth aspect of the business deal.

“Perhaps then, as the journalist wrote, you were lucky.  It is not, I think, a good time for internet-based companies.”

The latter statement was an interesting fact, one she read in the Financial Times which had made that exact comment recently.

“But I am boring you.”  She smiled again.  “I should be minding my own business and leaving you to your thoughts.  I am sorry.”

She turned to leave and took a few steps towards the main cabin.

“You’re not boring me,” I said, thinking I was letting my paranoia get the better of me.  It had been Sebastian on learning of my good fortune, who had warned me against ‘a certain element here and abroad’ whose sole aim would be to separate me from my money.  He was not very subtle when he described their methods.

But I knew he was right.  I should have let her walk away.

She stopped and turned around.  “You seem nothing like the man I read about in the Economist.”

A sudden and awful thought popped into my head.  Those words were part of a very familiar opening gambit.  “Are you a reporter?”

I was not sure if she looked surprised, or amused.  “Do I look like one?”

I silently cursed myself for speaking before thinking, and then immediately ignored my own admonishment.  “People rarely look like what they are.”

I saw the subtle shake of the head and expected her to take her leave.  Instead she astonished me.

“I fear we have got off on the wrong foot.  To be honest, I’m not usually this forward, but you seemed like you needed cheering up when probably the opposite is true.  Aside from the fact this excursion was probably a bad idea.  And,” she added with a little shrug, “perhaps I talk too much.”

I was not sure what I thought of her after that extraordinary admission. It was not something I would do, but it was an interesting way to approach someone and have them ignoring their natural instinct.  I would let Sebastian whisper in my ear for a little longer and see where this was going.

“Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.  I was supposed to be traveling with my prospective bride.  I think you can imagine how that turned out.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

“She’s in the cabin?”  Her eyes strayed in that direction for a moment then came back to me.  She seemed surprised I might be traveling with someone.

“No.  She is back in England, and the wedding is off.  So is the relationship.  She dumped me by text.”

OK, why was I sharing this humiliating piece of information with her?  I still couldn’t be sure she was not a reporter.

She motioned to an empty seat, back from the edge.  No walking the plank today.  She moved towards it and sat down.  She showed no signs of being cold, nor interested in the breeze upsetting her hair.  Phillipa would be having a tantrum about now, being kept outside, and freaking out over what the breeze might be doing to her appearance.

I wondered, if only for a few seconds if she used this approach with anyone else.  I guess I was a little different, a seemingly rich businessman alone on a ferry on Lake Geneva, contemplating the way his life had gone so completely off track.

She watched as I sat at the other end of the bench, leaving about a yard between us.  After I leaned back and made myself as comfortable as I could, she said, “I have also experienced something similar, though not by text message.  It is difficult, the first few days.”

“I saw it coming.”

“I did not.”  She frowned, a sort of lifeless expression taking over, perhaps brought on by the memory of what had happened to her.  “But it is done, and I moved on.  Was she the love of your life?”

OK, that was unexpected.

When I didn’t answer, she said, “I am sorry.  Sometimes I ask personal questions without realizing what I’m doing.  It is none of my business.”  She shivered.  “Perhaps we should go back inside.”

She stood, and held out her hand.  Should I take it and be drawn into her web?  I thought of Sebastian.  What would he do in this situation?

I took her hand in mine and let her pull me gently to my feet.  “Wise choice,” she said, looking up at the sky.

It just started to rain.

…

© Charles Heath 2015-2023

newdevilcvr6