To Die Every Day (Paperback)

John Gayford has been at sea since the age of 9. At 19 he joins the Royal Navy and is living with a young prostitute in Liverpool. She promises to give up her profession if he will marry her on his return. In a sea battle John is captured and taken to France where he spends 4 years being marched from prison to prison often in neck irons and chains. He escapes and is befriended by Naomi, the English widow of a guillotined French Count. Coincidentally she is the sister of Jane, wife of the owner of a mill in Liverpool where Megan gains employment. Naomi and John have a brief affair but he has to leave and is re-captured and resumes an horrendous existence including six weeks in solitary confinement. The war ends with Napoleon's banishment to Elba and John returns to England only to find that Megan, thinking him dead, has married. John goes back to France but becomes embroiled in Napoleon's re-emergence as the Emperor.