The Prize Rules Ch. 01

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I wanted to get at least the first chapter of this up for Remembrance Day, or whatever 11 November is known as where you are. I've wanted to post this on time for the past five years, but something always comes at me over the horizon and it doesn't get done.

And I didn't make it again, realising suddenly that there might not be enough time to have at least the first part of this approved and up for November 11.

~sigh~

But I've had enough of looking at this and wishing that I'd gotten it done, so here we go.

It's a romance set in the dark days leading up to World War II between a pair of people on opposite sides of the conflict which, as of the time of their meeting had not happened yet.

It's actually not that involved, though it felt that way to me when I wrote it. The story bounces around some in terms of time and location since there are several points of view presented to the reader as we go, so please note the year and location that I give at the beginnings of each section so that the pieces fall into place properly for you.

The particular war in this has been over for more than seven decades and represents a truly dark time for much of humanity. I'm only focusing on a few individuals who lived through it and how things worked out for them later on.

There are a ton of reasons why something such as this could never have happened, but what the hell ... I rarely write any romance pieces.

Love during wartime is often a long shot. In my book, if you're a romantic at heart, then I think that almost by definition, you'd understand about going for the long shot.

The Prize Rules are a convention going back to the days of sail and they concern the taking of prizes, that is, capturing merchant ships of an opposing power on the high seas during wartime. The appearance of submarines presented a glitch in how they were to be interpreted for a time, just as submarines changed a lot of other things then.

Briefly, if in war, you capture a ship belonging to your enemy, you can put a "prize crew" on board it to sail it home.

But since a submarine has no excess crew to sail a prize to port and no room to transport prisoners taken, the only alternative is to sink the prize. It caused a lot of head-scratching before it was all ironed out, but the Prize Rules are still in effect today.

Some of the events in this are actual and some aren't. Same thing goes for the characters. The protagonists never lived, though I use some events as though they were the results of actions by the protagonists.

I couldn't find out a thing about the existence of the small nation's navy, and since they have only a coast guard now, I've assumed that they had nothing at the time.

For pronunciation – if you're a stickler – here's a little help with some of the words or names in this.

Anneliese = ahne-leeseh

Tante - it means 'aunt'. The 'a' is a little different for most English-speakers. It's not spoken with the 'a' sounding flat as in 'ant' and it's not as round as the way that a lot of North Americans now pronounce 'aunt' as in 'ont'. It's about halfway in between. Yeah. Have fun with it. The 'e' at the end is sounded, so it's something like Tahnteh.

Hans-Joachim will be fun to get right. Hans is the same 'a' sound, not flat as in 'hands'. 'Joachim' is like 'Yo-ak-heem, but the 'k' is made as a very soft sound right at the back of the throat. Have fun with that one too. Hans-Joachim is not an uncommon name.

Some of the conversation in this is set in a Caribbean nation. I've tried not to let the tone become too thick, but I did try to flavour it out of wanting it to sound a little realistic in the reader's mind.

0_o

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Prologue – 1945, Schönberger Strand, Germany

The little girl wandered in through the set of French doors at the rear of the house trying to be quiet in doing it. At her age, just turning the glass crystal doorknob had been a recent accomplishment which required the use of both hands.

She'd tried to stay out of the way as the grownups sat talking for a time, only trying to play outside a little half-heartedly – just something to do while she was bored. Her cousin was at school and she knew that she ought to be there as well in her Kindergarten class, but her aunt Anneliese had kept her home from school that morning and not really given her a reason.

No one had told her anything specific at all, but she knew that something was up for sure.

The mysterious woman was back; the one whom she'd seen on occasion and tried to get a better look at when she thought that no one was looking.

The thing of it was that the woman always caught her doing it. Every single time.

Whenever she thought that it was a little safe to take a peek, she'd almost hold her breath for a moment to get up her nerve and then ... she'd try to look, since there were so many different things about the woman which fascinated her to see, but ...

After only - at best – a single moment or two, the beautiful mysterious woman would turn her head – even if she was speaking to Tante Anneliese at the time and look straight at her – right into her eyes.

She'd have to force herself to not turn and run. It would be seen as rude. She always looked away and tried to disappear after a moment.

The girl was perplexed and felt a tiny bit of fear wrapped in a sense of uncertainty about herself. She'd been living here for as long as she could remember, but she felt somehow that she didn't truly belong. Many things told her this – even at only five years old.

Her older cousin was blonde and fair – as was her aunt Anneliese.

She had brown eyes and theirs were blue, all of them.

Her hair was black and she wasn't really fair in her complexion, not the way that they were.

She tried once more to catch a glimpse of the woman as the two adults were sitting in some sort of earnest conversation and ...

Even though she'd gone the long way around to try to look from a different direction, peeking out from behind the side of the piano ...

The mysterious woman turned her head suddenly and her dark eyes seemed to lock onto hers and almost transfix her for a second. She'd never seen eyes which looked like that in her life. Her aunt had told her that the woman had come here from far, far away. The girl had no idea what 'far away' meant, but wherever it was, she had no doubt that the people there must be magical, from out of a storybook, if they all looked like this woman.

The little girl turned and almost ran to her room, deciding that whatever this was about, it likely wasn't good. She managed to keep the pace of her withdrawal down to a quick, almost tip-toed retreat.

She knew the truth.

She didn't belong here.

No matter what Tante Anneliese or her grandmother said, the girl knew at least a few things just from her own quiet observations.

Her cousin was not really related to her and Anneliese was not really her aunt. Her grandmother was not related to her either.

They'd mentioned her father to her at times, but she had a difficult time remembering him very much.

Even so, she knew somehow that he wasn't really her father.

She couldn't say just how she knew that; she just did. And from the viewpoint of her tender age, she was convinced in her convictions because the one detail which she could remember about him, other than how she remembered him being so happy to see her, was that his eyes were blue like the rest of them.

And she couldn't remember her mother at all.

She listened carefully, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't make out the words of the conversation, only hearing the buzz of it and wondering about the mysterious-sounding tone and sound of the black-haired woman's voice.

After a while, she heard a door open and close and then she heard her aunt's footsteps receding into the kitchen. A moment or two after that and she heard the strangest sounds coming from out in the garden.

She'd never heard anything like it; some kind of music, very gentle and a little haunting, coming from outside. She walked to the window and getting up on the wide, padded sill, she looked all around for the source, but she could see nothing other than the plants and the flowers out there.

The girl walked to the top of the stairs and slowly crept down until she was at the bottom and seeing no one – though she could hear her aunt beginning to work at preparing dinner – she walked back to the French doors and looked out.

She couldn't see anyone out there, yet the strange melody continued.

She opened the doors and stepped outside and at that instant, the sounds stopped.

She froze and looked around.

She saw nothing and no one.

All the same, she had to know now and she walked along the stone pathway very slowly, casting her eyes from side to side as she went. But she found as she walked that her uncertainty about everything was beginning to erode her sense of wonder.

When she'd used up the last of her curiosity because her courage had begun to fail, she turned around to go back inside.

The woman was there, smiling at her, holding out some sort of stick and though it seemed a little incongruous to the girl somehow, she was speaking in German, though it carried an odd lilt in it.

By now however, the spell was almost complete as the woman asked her if she liked the music and would like to try for herself.

All that she could do was nod a little and the mysterious woman smiled even wider in obvious pleasure as she introduced herself using a name which the girl had never heard the like of.

"I am Mòlì. It's the name I use back home, "the woman laughed as she saw the girl's face, "That's a secret that nobody here knows. It means Jasmine. You know, the flower? Have you ever seen one? Well I'll show you one sometime. The name is in another language and it's how my family call me, so you can use it too. I will be staying here with your family for a little while," she said. "I do not know anybody here and this is not at all like the place where I come from."

She looked down a little uncertainly for a moment. "It makes me a little nervous, but ... "

She smiled, "I would like to make a friend - if that is want you would like also. That's why I offer you my true name."

The little girl smiled and spoke her name – Katryn - which the woman had long known, though she didn't let on.

"Where do you come from?" Katryn asked.

Mòlì smiled and chuckled, "From the other side of the world, of course. I came here to see you."

She held out that stick again, "Do you want to try my flute? I can teach you how to play it in minutes – and I've even brought one for you to have and learn on."

The little girl couldn't help it. She stared at the woman's face, so strange and mysterious and beautiful. The sound of her voice was like a soothing bit of magic as well and before she really knew it, her life changed forever that morning from the instant that she touched the lovely stranger's hand.

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The woman stayed for dinner and though she went away for short periods now and then – a few days here and there, she really never left after that.

For a long time, she lived with them and though she might be gone for a time - and the longest period was a week and a half - she always returned and it always made the little girl happy to see her when she walked in.

Mòlì always said that it had something to do with Katryn's father, but Katryn could never understand what was said about it, only that he would be coming home to her again when it was over.

"Until then little friend, and even afterward – forever – you will always have me," Mòlì smiled.

The girl nodded, smiling every time because she liked to hear it by then, but there was always something in her like a tiny doubt that it was really true. She had no cause to doubt, but to this point in her life, some things hadn't gone for her the way that they had for other children her age and she knew it.

One day, she'd learned from the other children at school what an orphan was because her cousin had started the conversation and the girl had asked the teacher what it meant – and it made sense to her then in some strange way.

She held it inside of her hidden away and locked down in a very deep place inside of her while she acted as though nothing was on her mind, though she was really very upset.

Anneliese knew that there was something wrong, but she could never really connect with the little girl who'd been brought there by her brother a few years before. She'd been little more than a baby at the time and Anneliese had her hands full enough as it was.

But the strange woman knew far better - even though the girl said nothing for a time as the information stewed inside of her heart.

The woman didn't know what the issue was, but she knew an upset little girl when she saw one. The lack of tears meant nothing.

The almost-still silence and the look said it all.

Mòlì knew that it would probably come out one day very soon, when the girl could no longer keep it locked inside, so she prepared for that day.

Mòlì took care of Katryn as much as possible after that, though when she had to be away, it was her aunt stepping in once more. Katryn liked her time with the magical woman far better. She liked to watch her as she helped in the work of the household and the way that she always made sure to include her in everything.

Baths were a case in point. Katryn hadn't liked having her bath with her cousin because she always felt so little and childlike for the way that her cousin and her aunt, and most of all her grandmother seemed to always be treading carefully around her.

Mòlì wasn't like that at all, though the first bath had been a bit of a shock.

"Come on, we'll bathe together from now on, you and I" she'd said and that was how it went.

"Why?" Katryn had asked, but the woman only smiled for a moment.

"I think in most little places almost anywhere – if they are not in really fancy palaces – the women of a village or of a family for sure would bathe together," she'd smiled, "Because girls like to talk and it's a perfect place to do that, I think. Here, it depends on the mother and how she sees things. Giving a child a bath can be seen as just another task in a long list of them - so you toss the child in and scrub."

She shrugged, "There is nothing wrong with that way, and of course, when it is time for the mother's bath, she likes it much later at night when the children are asleep and then it is a time for her to relax in peace. You and I need to get to know each other - so there has to be far more talk for us, and not only as I tell you which arm to hold up while I wash you."

She chuckled as she held out a paper bag, "And I will teach you how to wash yourself, my little friend. That way, we have even more time to talk. And you shouldn't worry about trying to think of something to talk about all of the time. Here, this is for you."

The girl reached for it and pulled out a small Oriental-style toy boat. She held it up, fascinated with it. When she looked at Mòlì, she saw the slightly sheepish grin there.

"I still like to play with boats, too. Other than the main thing - which is that BOTH of us must come out cleaner than we went in, a bath with you should not be just another thing which must be done."

She pointed, "That is a magical boat, you know. With that, the steam from the bathwater and a lot of bubbles, we can have adventures as we sail it."

And it really was a new magical thing for the girl, every single time. There was nothing which couldn't be talked about between them after that and it was fun.

The day when she'd lost her struggle over the meaning of what an orphan was and how it applied to her, Katryn had held on until they were alone in the tub. Then it all came out of her at once; the little that she could remember and the way that she always felt.

And the word which now haunted her.

But her friend only held her as she'd cried and when she looked up, Mòlì was crying a little as well, but she promised that one day soon, Katryn wouldn't fit that word anymore.

The girl hadn't understood and by then, she was so upset that it had taken until the bathwater had almost gone cold before she'd cried it all out of her.

Mòlì had gotten them out and towelled off and then she took the girl to her room and they continued to talk in their nightclothes, side by side in the bed.

"I was not going to speak to you about this just yet," Mòlì said, "but I think that you need to know a little more. So I'll tell you everything that I can – but not all in one evening. It's too long a story for that.

We'll talk a lot of times about this, since I have a surprise for you - well, if you want it," she smiled.

"I learned today that your father will come back in just a little bit over a year from now. That's a very long time for a little girl. We can spend that time here together, just as we have been doing, or we could also go where I come from. Your father signed the papers for it today and so did your Tante Anneliese. We could go on a holiday and you could meet my family then.

It is your decision," she smiled, "and we'll talk of the story no matter what you choose – but you will have to live the winter with no snow if we go, because it does not snow there. You and I can speak as we do together, but you'll learn other languages then – and you're the perfect age for that."

"I am?" Katryn asked, looking up.

"No one learns a new language as easily as someone your age. It gets harder after that," Mòlì nodded.

The girl didn't decide right away, but one thing changed for them that very night.

When she hugged Mòlì and kissed her goodnight, she said that she wished that the she was her mother, now that she knew that she didn't really have one.

Mòlì stared for a minute and then she wiped her eyes with her sleeve. They looked at each other for a moment and then the girl was in the woman's arms and being hugged tightly.

"Then that is what I will be," Mòlì whispered with a happy sniffle.

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Over the next year, they travelled just as the woman promised. The little girl met a lot of people and saw a lot of places before it was time to go back. All during that time, they sat together often, the woman telling everything that she knew of the story to her daughter – as she often called the girl now.

What follows is what the woman knew of it all – because by that time, she knew almost every detail, though she never told the girl of the 'grown-up' parts.

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1937 Kiel, Germany

Well, Hans-Joachim Ullmann considered from the back seat of the staff car on his way to report for his next assignment, life certainly could bring surprises out of the blue. His present mode of transport was a case in point, but then there was the matter of time being a little short.

He'd never even heard of a Leutnant zur See ever being driven in a staff car belonging to the Kriegsmarine headquarters before.

And a newly minted one at that. He considered it all a moment longer as he studied the back of the driver's head.

The man had looked extremely irritated to have been chosen as the one who had to have the interior of his precious vehicle sullied by the presence of one so low in the pecking order. By his demeanour, he was obviously much more used to ferrying high members of the command around, and probably never anyone less than an admiral, by the look of things.

Hans-Joachim suppressed the beginnings of his slightly mischievous smile as he lit a cigarette.

The man's reaction that he could see in the mirror made it worth the price of the effort to keep his face straight just for that.

Hans-Joachim thought back to the meeting that he'd been dragged into the previous week. It had been a crazy ride to get here.