19 October 2026, Freewriters Community Daily Writing Prompt Day 3261: galley
Sometimes, eleven-year-old Eleanor Ludlow got reminders of who her people were … a few of them were some dangerous individuals though in a special way harmless to her.
“I can confirm that the story is true, Sgt. Barnes,” Eleanor's cousin and one-time caretaker Col. H.F. Lee was saying as he was walking across his lawn one fine morning. “Yes, I as an army colonel was ship's cook on a Navy destroyer for a month – yes, down there with the rest of the galley slaves – but I can't tell you any more than that. No, it's not classified – whole different situation. I mean I can't tell you before being on my way to kill you. Yeah, that level.”
To Eleanor, Henry Fitzhugh Lee was one of the kindest, most peaceful men she had ever met, and she had lived with him and his wife Maggie while her grandparents and adoptive parents Capt. R.E. and Mrs. Thalia Ludlow were away. The colonel's temperament was calm and warm toward children, and like Eleanor's eight-year-old sister Edwina said, “I just need a him my age and size – well, that's basically our brother Andrew, but I just need one not my brother and I am set for life!”
Eleanor, however, was just enough older to understand why her cousin, her grandfather, and their neighbor, Sgt. Vincent Trent, all presented as calm men who sat around and encouraged each other at times in de-escalation strategies in a world made crazy by Covid-19.
“Roll up on the wrong veteran, on the wrong day, and all your problems can be over – civilians don't understand so we must be responsible,” Sgt. Trent said.
Maj. Ironwood Hamilton, another of Eleanor's cousins and serving as police captain in Tinyville, VA, had started a “Blessed Are the Peacemakers” Bible study, a thing about which Eleanor's grandfather chuckled.
“Yeah, but Ironwood is the most peaceful man to ever serve in Special Forces,” he said to Col. Lee. “The war was waiting for him at home, however – how these corrupt police got together and had him at 50 percent to his kill list in a single day I will never understand.”
“Well, but it was Ironwood,” Col. Lee said. “He could have made it 200 percent, but one-third I took out non-lethally at his request, one-third gave up, and the one-third who wouldn't were killed in the crossfire we and the Deacons of Defense 2.0 set up for them.”
“See, if I were police captain in this town – or even you – fools would not have rolled up in the first place,” Capt. Ludlow said.
“Behold the efficiency of the element of surprise,” Col. Lee said, and Capt. Ludlow rolled laughing.
Eleanor knew who her people were, and that they all loved her, and...
“And we gotta live right and not get into situations these people need to get us out of,” she said to cousins-adopted-as-siblings ten-year-old Andrew and ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow.
“Yep,” Andrew and Glendella said.