George Washington's Ghost

“They’re making me a CAW,” he said defensively. “Commander Air Wing, that mean’s I don’t get to fly regular missions. Or, necessarily, to fly at all!”

“No,” his wife smiled ruefully, “you won’t let that happen.”

They had known this moment would come, sooner or later.

Leonora made a confession.

“I knew what I was getting into the first time I saw you, Alex,” she sighed. “Remember, that was the time you tried to get me killed?”

The man guffawed.

“That was a heck of a day, wasn’t it?”

Leonora gave him an unconvincing long-suffering look.

Her husband chuckled roguishly.

“Honestly, tell me that wasn’t the most fun you’d ever had in your life?” Alex pressed, a mischievous twinkle in his gaze. “Well, until you sprung me from jail. After that, we really, really had some fun!”

She leaned against him.

“Yeah,” she admitted reluctantly. “And yes, again.”

Feeling a little left out young Alex began to cry.

“I think he’s hungry,” the sleep-deprived mother groaned, irritated that every eye in the houses nearby was most likely staring at them through lace curtains. She stood up, turned around and with her back to the street put her son to her left teat, quieting him instantly.

Alex got up, a little unsure what he was supposed to do.

“As soon as he’s had his fill he’ll piss or poop his pants,” Leonora declared, mildly accusatively, “just like a man!”

Alex put his arm around her and kissed her hair.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t just dump all this on you out of the blue…”

“Don’t start apologising for everything, sweetheart.”

“Sorry,” he retorted.

Leonora giggled.

“Don’t be. Until I met you, I was going to be rich and idle all my life. I guess I’m still rich, I am an heiress, after all. But the idle bit had already got old by the time you tried to get us both killed on Empire Day. I didn’t think I’d ever be a Navy wife but I suppose that’s better than being a rich bitch wife of a banker or a lawyer, or a politician, so, I’m okay with that. Maybe, following you around the Empire was the way it was always supposed to be. Anyway, what’s the choice? Staying here on Long Island making another baby with you every time you come home every two or three years? Or actually being your wife?”

Alex shifted on his feet, suddenly foolish.

“You’ve got all this worked out, haven’t you?” He concluded ruefully.

“I was rich and idle, spoilt too, when I met you. I wasn’t ever dumb. I wouldn’t have married you if I wasn’t prepared to follow you wherever. To the ends of the earth, and all that stuff.”

She turned her face to him; they kissed unhurriedly.

And then, right on cue, as predicted junior pissed and pooped his pants.

Chapter 20

Wednesday 3rd May

Trinity Crossing, Unincorporated District of Northern Texas

The storm had passed over, the last of the rain having fallen some forty-eight hours ago but the chalky ford across the river was going to be impassable for days, or more likely, weeks. Presently, the Trinity River was in spate and low-lying parts of the sprawling town along its banks were several feet deep in muddy water.

Fifty-seven-year-old George Nathaniel Washington had ridden to the airfield that morning with two of his gauchos, kids he had known most of their lives whom he regarded as kith and kin, from Rancho Mendoza on the grounds north of the east fork of the Trinity River. He did not think he needed bodyguards – his second-in-command, Flight Lieutenant Torrance seemed to have an irrational fear of ‘bad Indians’ and ‘Dominican assassins’ – because he knew this country like the back of his hand, this was his home and he was too old to start living in fear at his age.

Nevertheless, riding with young Tom and Henry, he could briefly, forget that he was a soldier again. Presciently, Mary, his wife, had warned him that if he ‘got involved’ this time around ‘they will only make you a general’; and, it was already looking like she was right. Bless her, Mary was usually right. He had known that sooner or later his friends in the Red River highlands would turn to him; it was simply that the arrival of that young tyro, Torrance had hastened the process.

He had left Rancho Mendoza in his old friend Pablo’s capable hands. For the while, Pablo’s boy, Julio, and his daughter Connie could make themselves useful at Trinity Crossing. Mary had told him not to worry about whatever the youngster got up to ‘now that nobody is watching them all the time’. She had always been more laissez faire about ‘what the kids got up to’ than he had. Not because she had been brought up in India where the ‘goings on’ within the expatriate community, not to mention its ‘dalliances and interactions’ with members of the local native gentry, were intrinsically scandalous, which they were in some places; but simply because Mary always chose to see the best in people.

That was a rare gift.