She is always Tiddy to me. I am her older brother, Jack. I need your help. I think you will agree to give it when you have read this. They say you are an honourable man. I call upon you to prove it.It was the tea trade that brought Father to Japan. Tiddy and I were both born in Kent, but my earliest memories are of the house on the Bluff in Yokohama where we grew up. I was sent home to England for my education, but I never took to any career that might have led to. Nor to the tea business, much to Father’s disgust.The sea is what I have always loved. The open, limitless ocean. A man is judged aboard ship by what he contributes. If he cannot be relied upon, he is no use. Where he went to school, his accent, his connections – they count for nothing.Father cut me off when I told him I would make my way in the world as a sailor. Tiddy wrote to me wherever she thought letters would find me. I wrote back whenever I could. I prospered. I worked my way up to captain’s rank with the Indo-China Steam Navigation Company.
