A Duchess in the Pacific

One

"Duchess get up! Hurry! We have to leave right now!" He exclaimed in exasperated whispers and grabbed her by the wrist.

Was the house on fire?

"Dad?" Duchess shouted in a whisper. He shushed her.

"There's no time, Duchess! Quick put on your shoes!" He exclaimed as Duchess scrambled to find her house slippers.

Hopping on one foot to put on her shoes, in the hall Duchess could now see her father's face in the moonlight. And it terrified her. She had never seen him so scared in her entire life. Worry lines dug deep into his forehead and sweat was leaking from his sideburns. His hands were clammy and he kept breathing heavy. Suddenly a loud noise shook the house and cement dust sprinkled from the ceiling. Gunshots were firing down the block. Although she didn't fully understand and was still half asleep, Duchess began to catch up to her father's pace.

Jack pulled her out the back entrance of the house that lead out to the dock. Their boat was waiting, a sailboat with the name "The Duchess" painted on the bow. Jack helped Duchess get on. The two shared a brief moment of sobering eye contact, when Jack didn't get on the boat as well.

"I'm going back for your mother!" He shouted over the sound of artillery. Duchess could feel tears welling up in her eyes and her body began to shake. The night air was cold and she hadn't put her jacket on.

"Dad-" She began. She didn't want to leave her mother behind but she didn't want to be left alone. Jack took off his house coat and placed it on Duchess' shoulders than he removed his watch and shoved it into the palm of her hand.

"Listen to me, if your mother and I are not back in 5 minutes... You leave without us, do you understand me?" Jack was yelling louder now and squeezing Duchess by the arm.

Leave without them?

"What! No, No I won't. I can't-" Duchess' head was spinning. Everything was so awful. What was going on?

Jack grabbed her other arm and pressed his forehead to hers. The pressure made Duchess calm down the smallest bit. "Katarina, I need you to be the bravest you've ever been in your entire life. You are the smartest person I know, and somewhere inside of you I know you have the courage of a thousand good men. You just have to find it. I know you can, my love." Jack let go and kissed his daughter on the cheek. "Okay? You promise me you'll be brave?" Jack was getting even more eager to go back for Frances.

Duchess nodded vigorously as tears poured from her eyes. Her father had never called her by her real name. Never. Not once.

"Five minutes." He repeated and disappeared in the mist that surrounded the house.

In those five minutes, Duchess focused on the hands of her father's watch. She was shaking and shivering and crying. With each loud bang of gunfire she jumped and cried harder. What was taking them so long?

Jack had a habit of Falling asleep in the study. The study was far closer to Duchess' room than his and Frances's. He must've woken to the sound of the distant gunfire and thought to get Duchess out safe first. Or maybe he wasn't thinking at all. Maybe his fatherly instincts forced him to save his child first before he went back for his wife. If he had the choice to do it all over again, he would've got them both and then gone to the boat and then maybe they would have all been safe.

Finally, the noises subsided and the fog was beginning to dissipate. Duchess allowed the thought that perhaps the British or Americans had open fire back and won the battle, enter the realm of possibilities. But as the long hand on her father's watch ticked over to 12 for the 5th time, Duchess looked up to find no one coming through the fog. She felt like fainting or vomiting or simply dying. She felt kike a boulder had just rolled her over and flattened her to the ground.

But she had promised her father, and Duchess never broke promises.

With every resolve in her she found the strength to tie the boat off of the dock and run to the steering wheel. Her father had always let her drive the boat, ever since she was old enough to stretch her arms across the diameter of the wheel. But it was different when he was standing right there, with his strong protective arm cast around her, and her mother laying relaxed on the stern.

Now it was dark and she was alone and had no idea where she was going. But somehow, she pressed on.

...

Australia. That was the closest place. If Duchess could make it from New Guinea to Australia, she would be safe. She could tell someone about her parents and they would help her find them. Duchess reached, with trembling hands, for the map. Opening it up, she tried reading the coordinates. It was useless. The moon moved underneath dark clouds and the night was now pitch-black. There was no telling where she was going. But still she pressed on.

The clouds began to rumble and Duchess couldn't be sure if it was thunder or enemy airplanes. She closed her father's house coat tightly around her chest. It still smelled of his cuban cigars and aged Brandy.

Giant, golf ball sized, drops of rain began to pour from the sky and splash on the ship's deck. Soon the boat began to sway and rock uncontrollably. The waters grew rougher, and Duchess wasn't equipped to handle them as well as she needed to be. The panic rushing through her body sent her brain into a frenzy. As more and more water splashed onto the deck, the feeling of wanting to give up and die was rising within her chest.

The sail flapped and howled loudly in the storm. Duchess whipped her head around to look just as the rope that held the sail up snapped with a whistling sound and hissed its way off of the mast. Duchess yelped in surprise and quickly went to fix it. In her state of panic and confusion, she didn't see the boom swinging its way towards her. The end of the hard wooden pole clipped Duchess right in the back of the head, knocking her unconscious and sending her face first, down the hatch of the boat.