She walked to the quay and looked east. Merchant ships unfolded their sails and steered a course to distant lands. She looked how their black shapes disappeared into the orange light. This inlet was the country's window at the world, and it was the city's source of wealth.
But for her it was a place of doubt and longing, a site of hope and despair. She listened to the dashing of the water against the bows of the moored ships. How long? How long did she have to wait for news? Only now she began to understand the women whose husband sailed towards the orient. Their men left them for months, years even. Her love had only been away for a week now.
She cursed the politicians and their plots. She cursed the English. There they were, their diplomats, eating and drinking, sleeping with local women and bragging about their victories, but had peace been signed?

Instead her love had been sent to that dreadful island 'to punch them in the face'. A ridiculous mission. She hadn't heard much about the operation, but from what she had gathered, they wanted to 'crush them on their own soil.' That, while they were still busy negotiating peace!

She remembered how he had kissed her, how she had embraced him and pulled him into the haystack, how he had caressed her blonde curls, how she had pressed her lips against his. It had been their last night together and she had whished that the sun would never rise again.

" Orders are orders", he had said and only later she realized that he just quoted the admiral. She had asked him to stay home. The mission would be his death. Even the captains disagreed about its possibility. One couldn't simply march into England and defeat it. Did he even know how big England was and, moreover, how enormous its army and fleet were?

Every day since he had left she visited the quays and she looked at the rising sun, hoping to see the masts of the war-ships. But she guessed that he was still in the west while she looked east.

More than once she had shivered at the idea that he would now rest at the bottom of the sea, closer to the rocky, white coasts of Albion than to her. He was so young, so kind. If the grand pensionary wanted this war so badly, why didn't he go to fight the English himself?

She sighed and wanted to turn around. But then she saw the strange shape at the horizon. A ship came towards the inlet, and another one, and yet another one.
As the ships sailed into the harbour, more and more people gathered on the quays and they waved at the sailors.

She searched for his ship, but as she spotted it, she couldn't see him. Joy and fear were fighting in her heart. The fleet had returned, but how many had died? Was he among the sailors? Maybe he had been re-assigned to another ship?

Then she saw a ship she had never seen before. It was a huge, captured English vessel and there he was. He was leaning against the railing and next to him there was the admiral, holding the royal standard of England.