Sea Lord

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It is inevitable that some boat names in Sea Lord will coincide with the names of real boats. Nevertheless every vessel in this book, like every character, is entirely fictional.

SEA LORD is dedicated to

Diedree and Oscar Morong,

Masters under God of the good vessel

Diedree-Anne.

Part One

I didn’t want to go home. I’d once sworn I’d never go home, yet here I was, plugging across the Western Approaches on a flooding tide in a filthy night.

In seven years I had been home just once. That first return had been a family duty and had turned into a family disaster. I had endured as long as I could; then, overwhelmed by responsibilities and harried by lawyers, I had sailed away. It was then that I had sworn never to return to England.

Now, four years later, I was going home.

And again it was duty which drew me back; family duty.

It certainly wasn’t homesickness, for in seven years of ocean wandering I had never missed England. I tried to persuade myself it was curiosity that took me north into the cold Channel waters, but curiosity needs the provocation of affection or hate, and I felt neither for my family. Yet now, if the message was true, my family wanted my return and so, dutifully, perhaps guiltily, I was going home.

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